


Mutually Assured Destruction

by fohatic



Category: Iron Fist (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Canon Compliant, Drug Addiction, F/M, Sibling Incest, Sibling Rivalry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:35:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23589256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fohatic/pseuds/fohatic
Summary: Joy still won't pick up the phone. Ward remembers where it all went wrong.
Relationships: Joy Meachum/Ward Meachum
Comments: 10
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

Voicemail again. After only one ring this time. She’s getting quicker at rejecting his calls. 

He remembers when she used to just let it ring and ring, for a full count of six before the voicemail would pick up on its own. _Was that worse? The waiting? Not knowing if she would pick up at the last minute?_ \-- At least then, he could still hope that she would. For all he knew, she might’ve been staring at his name as it lit up her screen—with that little frown of annoyance that he was all too familiar with—and maybe her eyes softened for a moment and she thought about answering; maybe it hurt her to ignore him like that. Maybe she wanted to hear his voice, if only to confirm how miserable he was. Maybe.

Or maybe it was her way of torturing him.  
  
“Joy...” he sighs, drawing out the sound of it. The word is a resignation. _Where has my Joy gone?_ he thinks, weakly. Playing with her name again. She used to think he was teasing her with all those double entendres he used to come up with. He just thought he was being sweet.

Maybe he should be grateful that she’s so blatantly rejecting his calls, now. This way there’s no questioning what she’s thinking when she sees his name on her screen. She’s thinking: _Fuck off, Ward._ Plain and simple. So simple that there’s almost a kindness in it.

His eyes flash to his bottom drawer and before the thought even occurs to stop, he’s already reaching for the handle. He pivots in his chair and regards the contents disdainfully. He hates how easy it is. He’s always one misguided decision away from destroying everything. All he has to do is reach for one of the bottles; any would do... Percocet, Klonopin, Glenlivet. Too easy. 

There wasn’t enough whiskey in the world to wash away what he’d done. Klonopin works like a charm for short term memory loss, but wouldn’t do anything for the kind of demons he wanted to forget. Percocet, on the other hand...

He remembers the last time he mixed Percocet and booze: though he can’t recall most of the particulars, he does remember the scent of her perfume and her body heat and how easy it was to touch her; how she didn’t bat an eye when he toyed with her blouse and skimmed his fingers over the delicate bones of her hands. She didn’t recoil; she didn’t even gently redirect his attention away from her body, the way anyone else might have in her situation, being pawed at by a sloppy drunk. Maybe he wasn’t so drunk after all; maybe he just liked acting more wasted than he was when she was so close to him. Maybe he craved whatever intimacy he could weasel out of these opportunities. Maybe she knew that.

“Fuck it.”

And just like that, his tenuous bid for sobriety was over. It always struck him how automatic it was, the way his hands reached for the prescription bottle, twisted off the cap, palmed the pills, tossed them into his mouth while the other hand reached for the whiskey to wash them down. It was as if he wasn’t even in control of the actions themselves; there was an efficiency to them, a body memory directed by a phantom driver; this addict who was always ready to take the wheel the second he relinquished control, leaving him to look on in passive bewilderment from the passenger seat of his own life. 

Not that he wasn’t at least partially to blame. The addict in him was only the scapegoat for that thing in him, that **_want_** that wouldn’t let go. And that... _that_ was all him.

* * *

The first time it happened she was only thirteen. It was in the middle of a particularly hot summer; the last summer, in fact, before his life was turned upside down completely. This was just the first crack, before it all shattered. Maybe this was where it all went wrong. Maybe his mother’s death, and Danny’s disappearance, and all the other shit that happened before this moment were just ordinary ‘bad things’ that happen to people sometimes, but weren’t the kind of ‘bad things’ that signify a rupturing of the order of the universe; the kind of ‘bad things’ that thrust someone into another plane of existence entirely, like a fork in the road that shouldn’t even be there; some kind of fucked up parallel life that unfolds in convoluted, blackened layers of corrupted time and space, rejected by the known universe—spit out—cast off into the void of wayward timelines... and all as a result of taking that cursed, forked path one hot, summer's day. 

He’d asked her to leave them alone. His friend Kyle was over, and they were trying to figure out how to illegally burn a DVD copy of some big new movie that had just leaked. They would have just gone to the cinema complex, but Ward was supposed to “keep an eye on Joy,” even though she was perfectly capable of looking after herself. It wasn’t that he resented his sister... just that she’d become particularly clingy for some reason lately. Always asking him what he was doing, where he was going; always asking if she could tag along. He was at an age where independence was a primary concern, and having a thirteen year-old girl following him everywhere just didn’t fit with the image he was trying to hone. 

It would’ve been easier if his friends had been as indifferent toward Joy and her little pals as he tried to be, but lately he’d noticed Kyle and Alan making comments about how “hot” Joy and her friends had become. It had happened almost overnight, but once it happened, it couldn’t be undone. He’d tell them to shut up about it; would jokingly warn them to stop perving on his little sister. But the more they’d mention it, the more he noticed it, too. The girls were looking different lately, and Joy was the prettiest of the bunch.

So when Becky and Kristen got bored and noticed Ward and Kyle hanging out upstairs, it was easy enough to talk Joy into starting a water balloon fight. She’d been annoyed with Ward for ignoring her all week, and to top it off, he’d taken the last box of her Girl Scout cookies upstairs even though she’d written “JOY’S–DO NOT EAT!” across the box with a thick red sharpie. So she’d been easily recruited into firing the first shot: one big, fat yellow balloon heavy with cold tap water, aimed right at Ward’s back as he hunched over the computer. The girls shrieked with laughter and excited panic as water exploded across Ward’s t-shirt and grazed Kyle’s face and shoulder, then fled in hysterics as the boys cursed and shouted, “WHAT THE FUCK?!” and “OH, YOU’RE **DEAD** ,” and “IT’S ON, NOW! YOU BETTER RUN!!”

Kyle was already digging through Ward’s closet for the old super-soaker water guns that hadn’t been used in ages, while Ward was peeling his wet shirt off his back with an energizing mix of pissed-off animosity and a heightened state of competition. She definitely wasn’t going to get away with this. 

Somehow he wasn’t surprised to find that the girls had suddenly stripped down to their bikinis when he spotted them out in the yard, carrying water balloons to their makeshift battle zone. He and Kyle tried spraying the water guns at them through the upstairs window, but aside from some surprised shrieks, the results were less than satisfactory. 

“Get the hose,” Ward had told Kyle, pointing to the side of the house. “Go around back and chase them into the patio; try to get them as close to the window as you can. I’m going to dump a bucket over them.”

“Oh, shit!” Kyle laughed, liking the plan. “Dude, you should piss in it, too!” 

Ward had grimaced at the idea. “That’s disgusting.”

“Whatever, man,” Kyle huffed as he sprinted toward the stairs, “Get the bucket ready.”

He remembers how he felt watching Kyle surprise the girls with the garden hose, the spray nozzle on full blast, their screams, the laughter and anticipation welling up in him as they ran toward the side of the house. But only Becky and Kristen got close enough to get a bucket dumped over them. Joy had cleverly dodged the worst of the hosing and had been spotted ducking around the side gate, arms loaded with water balloons. Ward barely had a moment to relish the sight of the girls looking thoroughly drenched on the patio beneath him before he was sprinting after Joy, his primary target.

He’d grabbed a couple undetonated water balloons off the ground as he chased after her, his whole body primed with the thrill of the hunt. He’d just rounded the corner of the gate when SMACK! – she’d gotten him a second time, right in the chest. Temporarily shocked, as he’d regarded his wet skin and the water trailing over the top of his jeans he couldn’t help but look impressed as he’d smirked up at her, eyes flashing with danger. She’d stifled her laugh and took off as fast as she could toward the conservatory. _Big mistake._

It had been oppressively hot in the conservatory that day. Sweltering. The glass walls were fogged over and sweating with condensation. Ward had stood in the doorway and listened, trying to pinpoint the hushed sound of Joy’s movements under his own heavy breathing. Something had shifted in the greenery somewhere to the far right. _Bingo_.

What happened next had all become something of a hazy blur. He could remember most of the parts surrounding the incident, but couldn’t put them in the proper sequential order. He could remember pushing past the fronds and ducking under hanging epiphytes, moving slowly. He could remember startling her, the way her eyes had gone wide and the look that passed between them. From there, the details get muddied. There might have been another chase, or maybe it happened right there. All he can recall is that there was a struggle... it had gotten unexpectedly physical... water balloons bursting against wrestling skin and the slick feel that followed... laughing, gasping, whining, and then at some point he had her pinned against the wooden work table, both of them bent over at the waist, him pressing the last water balloon against the back of her head and forcing her to admit defeat, to tell him he’d won. Not that there had been any rules... he just wanted her to say it. _“Tell me I won, Joy... Tell me I won,”_ he’d commanded, his voice gravelly and slightly desperate. 

He remembers when she went still. She’d been squirming under him, determined to free herself, and then suddenly she stopped moving. He’d immediately known why. He could feel it, too. Somewhere along the way he’d gotten rock hard, and now his boner was pressing through his jeans and into his sister’s bikini bottom. He remembers the cold panic that washed over him, then the heat that spread over his face. He remembers gently lifting himself off of her, trying not to be obvious about it. But most of all, he remembers the look on her face when she finally turned around, after what seemed like an aeon of hesitation: she didn’t look appalled, or confused, or any of the other reactions he might’ve expected in that moment... 

She looked fucking _smug_. 

Of all things. Smug. He’d never gotten over that. They never mentioned it again, but something had changed between them that day. Their sibling rivalry had mutated into something much more charged; much more significant. The game had changed. The ante had been upped. The rules were being rewritten, and the first rule was that they were to be completely unspoken. _Always_.

...


	2. Chapter 2

The soft vibration of his phone beside him woke him up, barely, and he blearily fumbled to see who had texted him, so certain for a moment that Joy was checking up on him. _How did she know? Did she somehow sense that he had passed out on his sofa again, and wanted to make sure he was still breathing?_

He felt sick when he realized it was just an automated alert from Zimperium. _“A security update has been successfully installed.”_ Fantastic. 

The sour feeling in his stomach didn’t go away, and he prayed that he wouldn’t have to vomit. Not again. He hated the thought of anyone knowing that he’d fucked up again, even if it was just the office cleaning staff. He had to hold it together. 

Rolling over onto his side and curling his legs up toward his chest, Ward tried to imagine that Joy was in the room, soothing him. The way she used to. Just like mom used to do. She was so good at that. 

_“I’ll do yours if you do mine...”_

That’s what they used to say to each other when one of them wanted a back rub. God, he loved those back rubs. He remembered when Joy was little—when they both were—and she would ask him to rub her back “like mom” after their mother had died. He did his best, but Joy would gently imply that he was doing it wrong: “softer,” she’d say; he was always going too fast, or would use too much pressure. Eventually he figured it out, from her demonstrating the proper technique on him: just the lightest touch, using only the tips of the fingers, always grazing, never scratching, never pulling on the skin. If you did it just right, the way Joy instinctively knew how, then you might get goosebumps, or feel warm tingles running along the spine, all they way up to the scalp. 

It was the best feeling; incredibly relaxing, instant comfort. Ward’s favorite place to be touched was on the back of his neck, just below the hairline. Joy figured that out pretty quick. Hers was the small of her back, but over time he also learned that she really liked when he’d run his fingertips along either side of her body, getting as close as possible to her ticklish spot at the far edge, without tickling her too much. The sweet spot was tricky to pinpoint; close, but not too close. If he went too far, she’d squirm and her stomach muscles would clench and the spell would be broken. But if he did it just right, she’d get goosebumps all along her arms, her breathing would deepen, and sometimes she’d even make a little sound of contentment. He loved that.

When they were kids, they’d do it all the time. She’d climb into his bed when she was scared, or sad, or when dad was out late and she’d find his room empty. Ward didn’t mind. Sometimes he was scared or lonely, too, though he’d never admit it. He didn’t even mind when Joy would fall asleep on him when he hadn’t even gotten his turn, yet, but sometimes he’d insist that she did him, first. In the winter, when it was too cold to take their shirts off, they’d slip their hands under each other's clothing, since skin-on-skin always felt better than doing it over fabric. A little cool air on the skin also enhanced the sensation. In the summers, with shirts off, sometimes they’d blow softly on each other’s backs in between strokes, giggling at the sudden contrast.

But as they got older, Joy would visit Ward’s bed less and less. If she did climb in with him, it was usually when something bad had happened and she knew he needed her. Like the time he came home with a black eye, and wouldn’t tell anyone what had happened. Their father had made a big fuss about it, calling the school and demanding to know how his son had been injured, why hadn’t anyone seen anything, what kind of atmosphere were they allowing over there, he wasn’t paying them as much as he was for that level of negligence, so on and so on. When he didn’t get the answers he wanted from the school, he demanded that Ward tell him who had done that, but Ward was aggressively closed-mouth about the incident. Forgoing dinner, he'd spent the rest of the evening alone in his room. Later that night, after their father had gone to bed, Joy had gone to him and didn’t ask him any questions, just climbed in bed beside him and stroked the back of his neck the way she knew he liked it. At first he’d been stiff and closed off, but after awhile he relaxed into her touch, sighed deeply, and she traced her fingers over the back of his shirt. When her fingers kept snagging in the folds of the fabric, Ward pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it aside, settling back on the bed to allow her wider access. She kept at it for what seemed like hours, even long after he realized her arm must’ve gotten tired. Eventually he reached behind for her wrist, pulling her arm around him and holding her hand to his chest. She settled in beside him, her body curled against his, and they fell asleep together, her breath tickling the back of his neck. It was one of his best memories.

He remembers when it changed.

Not long after the incident in the conservatory, their father had told them about his being diagnosed with cancer. Terminal. Everything got turned upside down, then. Ward’s plans to go away to college overseas now seemed irredeemably cruel to Joy, who had hated the idea to begin with, but who was now a wreck at the thought of Ward leaving her alone in the wake of her father’s impending, slow demise. He couldn’t do that to her, so he decided to delay for a year, giving them both time to come to terms with what was happening. 

But Harold wouldn’t have it. He insisted that Ward put his education above the familial drama and attend school locally as a compromise. Though the thought of focusing on his studies at such a time seemed absurd, Ward didn’t want to argue with the dying man. He reluctantly agreed, and made the necessary arrangements. In addition to starting his college career on schedule, Harold told Ward that he would need to look after Joy, to make sure that her own education didn’t falter and to keep her on track emotionally as well. He would need to check on her regularly, and Harold suggested that they live together near Ward’s campus to simplify matters. The former Rand family residence was unoccupied, and its central location would serve them both perfectly. Ward agreed to all of it, abandoning his youthful dream of traveling far away and seeing the world from a fresh, widened perspective. The world wouldn’t be opening up for him after all. His world was about to become smaller; even more confined. Somehow he had become an adult overnight, taking on more responsibility than he thought he was capable of, and he was still months away from his eighteenth birthday. 

It was around this time that the drinking started. He already knew what it was like to get buzzed. He’d even gotten high a few times, though he mostly considered marijuana a waste of time. But getting _drunk_... that was awesome. Nothing really mattered very much to him if he was drunk enough. Not his father dying in front of him, or the fading memories of his dead mother, or his broken dreams, or the shitty, local school he’d be spending the next four years at, or even having to move out of his childhood home and into Danny fucking Rand’s dead parents’ bedroom. It was all just fine with him if he had enough liquor on hand. 

Of course, his dad didn’t make it easy for him. Even through the haze of chemotherapy, Harold could tell that something wasn’t right with Ward. He’d instructed the housekeeper to lock all of the best liquor up and throw out all the rest, but Ward just started hanging out with Kyle or Alan later and later. Then Harold had tried to enforce a stricter curfew, but Ward just stopped coming home at all. Pretty soon Harold was too bedridden to do much of anything, and Ward started asserting more authority around the house. He was openly drunk in front of the staff, and nobody dared to admonish him since they knew that he’d be in charge of their wages soon enough. 

For all of the accelerated growing up Ward was experiencing, Joy was not far behind him. She was witnessing everything, and knew more than she let on. To Harold, she was still his precious little girl, and babying her was his dominant instinct. Ward could see that she cherished her father’s affection, but it was also apparent to him that she didn’t rely on it as much as she once had. Part of her had already come to terms with the fact that he would be gone soon; it was the same part of her that had already learned to cope with his habitual absences growing up. _If dad’s not around, there’s always Ward_...

And so—just as she had done as a little girl whenever she was afraid or lonely, whenever dad wasn’t around (or sometimes even if he was)—Joy started knocking on Ward’s bedroom door again in the middle of the night. 

At first it was kind of weird, and he’d ask her what she wanted and she’d just shrug and look at him sheepishly, asking him if she could come in, and he’d try to tell her that he was tired or needed to get up early, and she’d look sad and head back to her room. But even after a couple rejections she’d still come back and try again another night, and he could see the desperation in her and it pained him to turn her away when he recognized it for what it was, and when he knew that at least he had the booze when he needed it. All Joy had was him.

“Okay,” he had sighed, “come on in.”

He was sober that first night, so he didn’t have to worry about her smelling the liquor on him. He made a show of making room for her and pulling up the covers for her to crawl under, amused at the way she easily fell into the old habit. It was just like the old days, only now they were nearly grown up. There wasn’t as much room in the bed as there used to be. 

She said it first: _“I’ll do yours if you do mine...”_

Ward cracked a fond smile at that, lazily flicking a strand of hair off his sister’s face. “Oh all right.” 

When Joy started to roll away from him, Ward interrupted her: “Nuh uh, _me first_. I know how this works. If I do you first, you’ll just fall asleep on me.”

“I won’t, I promise,” Joy whined, but Ward was already getting comfortable on his side, adjusting his pillow with his back to Joy. 

“What if _you_ fall asleep first?” she weakly protested.

“That would serve you right,” Ward mumbled into his pillow. “This is the price of admission.”

“Fine, but aren’t you going to take your shirt off?” Joy asked.

“Nah, ‘s too cold,” Ward muttered, sounding tired already.

Expecting Joy to start tracing her fingers over his shirt, Ward was surprised when he felt her carefully slip her hand underneath the fabric. He went still at the touch, not used to the intimacy of it anymore. She seemed to sense his discomfort, and pressed her palm gently into the center of his back, as if her hand were listening to him. _To what? His breathing? His heart beats?_

After a few moments of complete stillness, Ward took a deep breath. On his exhale, Joy began to move again, coaxing his tense muscles to relax under her tender strokes. _She really was very good at that_...

“How’d you get so good at that?” Ward murmured.

“Lots of practice, remember?” Joy smiled. 

“But you were always good at it,” he pointed out.

Joy shrugged, then trailed her fingers lightly up his spine toward his neck. The shirt made the transition awkward, and she pulled her hand out to reach over the collar. Recognizing the impediment, Ward hesitated for a moment before murmuring “hold on...” and shifting around to pull his shirt off. He could feel Joy’s eyes on him as he settled back into his pillow, and wondered what he’d see if he turned around. He knew that he was in really good shape, having spent more time working out lately in an effort to compensate for all the damage he was doing to his body by drinking so much. He realized that it was important for him to impress her; he wanted her to think that he was strong and capable. 

This time, when her fingers trailed softly over the back of his neck, he shuddered.

“I thought you liked that?” Joy asked, her voice almost a whisper.

“I do,” Ward replied. 

“Then relax,” Joy suggested, “you’re so tense...”

“I am relaxed,” Ward countered, hoping he didn’t sound too defensive.

When Joy ran her hand swiftly along the edge of his ribcage, Ward flinched and pulled away. “Hey,” he protested, “stop that.”

“You’re still ticklish there?” Joy smirked, the answer obvious.

“Don’t act surprised,” Ward huffed. 

“Sorry, I like when you do that to me,” Joy tried, her hand making conciliatory gestures across his shoulder blades. 

“No you don’t,” Ward huffed, “...you think I don’t remember how you squirm when I tickle your sides?”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t like it,” Joy wistfully remarked. “Some people like being tickled.”

Ward furrowed his brow at that. He was so certain that he’d read her reactions correctly. He thought he knew her better than that... _Could he have gotten it wrong?_

“Well, not me,” he sighed, enjoying the wide circular motions she was making over his skin, now.

Ward relaxed deeper as the minutes passed by, noticing the intentional shapes Joy would make from time to time, sometimes tiredly naming them aloud. _Heart. Star. House. Arrow._

Sometimes they were too complex to follow. “What was that last one?” he once asked, after a series of precise motions faded into more lazy swirls. 

“Oh, nothing...” Joy lied, “just squiggles.”

Ward frowned. Squiggles didn’t involve dots and straight edges.

When she started drawing something new, Ward paid closer attention. This time he was sure he knew exactly what she was drawing.

“Uh, Joy?” he asked.

“Hmm?” she lazily responded.

“Did you just draw a penis on my back?”

Joy let out a snort. “No,” she lied.

“Well... that really felt like a penis,” Ward maintained.

“Hmm,” Joy replied, struggling not to laugh, “you’re probably just thinking about penises too much, then.”

“I’m only thinking about them because you’re clearly drawing them on me,” Ward retorted. He sounded annoyed but when he rolled over to face her, he was smirking.

“Is it my turn, yet?” Joy asked, hopefully.

“Yeah, sure,” Ward smiled, his smirk softening into something more tender. He was glad she was with him. He missed this. “Roll over.”

Joy smiled back at him before she rolled away, settling into her pillow. Ward reached a tentative hand up to her back, not sure where to begin. She was a tough act to follow. He had just started tracing lines across her back when she instantly corrected him, “No, under the shirt.”

Ward’s mouth twisted as he complied, feeling strange about reaching his hand under his sister’s top, now. Her skin was so warm and smooth, with such softness that it almost seemed like it wasn’t meant to be touched. Not clumsily, at any rate. He knew that he wasn’t doing it right; his fingers were supposed to be barely skimming the surface of her skin, but she wasn’t correcting him, yet. She seemed content to allow him to explore a little, first. 

As his hand moved higher up, he realized she wasn’t wearing a bra. He supposed that made it easier; he’d never had to navigate around her bra before. _The last time he did this, she didn’t even have boobs..._

And just like that, he was thinking about his sister’s boobs. He knew they were there, just over the curve of the ribcage that he always thought he wasn’t supposed to touch, until she’d just told him otherwise. He thought it was strange, that there were barriers to this intimacy, lines that weren’t supposed to be crossed, skin that was acceptable and unacceptable to touch. Here she was, offering up a specific portion of her body to him, asking him—practically begging him—to fondle it, caress it, tickle it, even... _but what about the rest of it? What would that feel like? Who was allowed to touch those parts?_

“Lighter,” she instructed him. He complied.

The barrier of her shirt made it difficult to access the upper portion of her back, but Ward knew that Joy liked the lower part best, anyhow. He spent a long time there, adjusting his pace and pressure until he noticed the results he was aiming for. Nothing had changed, really. He still knew what she liked. Except now, when he grazed her side, he pushed the edge a little further than before. This time, when she squirmed, he didn’t immediately pull away.

“You really like that?” he asked, just to be sure.

“Yeah, it tickles,” she confirmed. 

That didn’t make much sense to him. He didn’t like to be tickled; it was too intense for him. He decided to experiment. Ever so lightly, he trailed a single fingertip down the full length of her side. Her arm prickled with goosebumps. As he reached her hip, he circled back in one long stroke and traced up the same route, slightly closer to the edge. She inhaled deeply, then sighed with contentment. Now for the experiment: as he reached her shoulder, he circled back again and trailed one long, slow, feather-light stroke down her body again, this time over the well-established edge. She let out a funny sound and squirmed slightly, but didn’t pull away. _Interesting._

He wasn’t completely convinced that she enjoyed that, knowing how he’d feel in the same position. But he was determined to figure this out, so on the way back up he quickened the pace of the stroke, this time alternating his fingers in a light, rapid fluttering motion. He reached even further this time.

Joy let out a surprised sound and squirmed more noticeably, but still didn’t pull away.

“You really like that, huh?” Ward queried, disbelieving.

“It feels nice,” Joy insisted, sounding slightly breathy. 

“Really?” Ward countered, getting a little pushy, now, “ _This_ feels nice?” he huffed as he reached over and fully tickled his sister, wriggling his fingers in closer to her belly and eliciting a panicky giggle.

“Not when you do it rough like that,” Joy snapped, giggling uncontrollably again when he teasingly repeated the gesture.

“Then why are you laughing?” Ward teased, sliding his hand further up her shirt and tickling her stomach on the opposite side.

“Stop it!” Joy laughed, squirming away from his hand and pushing up closer to Ward’s body. 

“Okay, okay... I’ll stop,” Ward laughed, wrapping his other arm around his sister and pulling her in for a playful squeeze. His right hand was still poised on her stomach, waiting for her breathing to settle down before drawing light, lazy circles over the more tender flesh. “See?” he cooed, “nobody likes to be tickled.”

Joy sighed against him, relaxing into the gentler touch. “But that tickles, too,” she half-whispered, “just in a different way.”

Ward felt heat rising to his cheeks and his cock stirring in the boxer shorts that were less than an inch away from his sister’s rear end. _Uh oh._

He felt something akin to a fight-or-flight response well up inside him, only this particular terror would be more accurately termed ‘fuck-or-flight.’ He had half a mind to kick her out right then and there, tell her it was time to go back to her room, tell her that he was getting tired, tell her _anything_ other than what the other half of his mind blurted out in that moment.

“Yeah, you like it when I touch you,” he intoned, his voice low and breathy.

“Mmmhmm,” Joy confirmed, relishing the sensual movements he was stroking across her torso. Ward’s head filled with pressure; there was a ringing in his ears and he could feel his heartbeat pounding in his chest. 

He understood exactly why she liked this particular touch, now. He wondered if she understood it. If she even knew what was happening. Suddenly, he withdrew his hand.

“Don’t stop,” Joy protested, somewhat urgently.

Ward rolled onto his back and gulped deeply as he ran a hand down his face, tugging on his chin and stretching his jaw. He willed his cock not to overreact. _What the fuck_...

“Get out, Joy, I’m tired,” he offered, his tone flat.

“I spent way longer on you,” Joy objected.

“Yeah, well, I told you that was the price of admission,” Ward weakly joked. “Now I want to go to sleep, okay?”

“Fine,” Joy huffed, "but you owe me next time..."

“Yeah, sure,” Ward murmured, wishing she’d get out of his bed already. He felt like he needed a cold shower.

Joy sat up and straightened her shirt with a little sigh before padding off toward her bedroom. Ward held his breath for a long beat, reminding himself that he hadn’t jerked off in a while. _That’s all this was_ , he told himself. 

As soon as he heard her door click shut, he dug into his dresser drawer, looking for the porn magazines that he’d hoarded over his post-pubescent years and hadn’t looked at much since. He desperately flipped through the pages, looking for someone, anyone who could stir his interest. The blonde bombshell on page 15 of the 2002 September issue wasn’t cutting it anymore. He flipped some more before landing on an image that caught his attention. A cute brunette with her hand down the waistband of her mini skirt and her shirt pulled up over the top of her breasts, exposing her nipples. Ward fixated on the image and immediately got to work, grabbing some tissues and pushing his boxers down. His strokes were rough and aggressive, and he bit his lip as his balls tightened up. Knowing he was about to come, he grabbed the tissues and rolled onto his side, pressing his face into the pillow to suppress a moan. He caught the scent of Joy’s shampoo on his pillow the second before he came. 

He’d never felt so sickly disoriented by an orgasm in his life. 


	3. Chapter 3

He wondered what time it was. It was probably after midnight by now. Too late for dinner, not that he was eating much these days anyhow. There was a protein bar in his top drawer, but just the thought of getting up and crossing the room made him dizzy. He needed to plan this better, next time. _If you’re going to pass out on the sofa, make sure there’s a barf bag handy, and a bottle of water, and something to eat._ If he was going to go down this road again, he might as well try to make it more comfortable.

Next time. 

_Next time..._

That’s what she had said to him, all those years ago. He’d had no idea how significant the concept had been, then. He really didn’t think anything of it. Maybe he’d even thought there wouldn’t be a next time. Maybe he’d thought that he could stop it, back then; that he could just tell her ‘no’ and that would be that. _How hard would that have been?_

But then again, he didn’t know much of anything in those days. He’d really had _no_ idea...

He remembers the day he came home and found Joy in his father’s room, her eyes puffy from crying. She’d sent the nursing staff away, and was leaning against the side of Harold’s new, state-of-the-art hospital bed, rubbing her father’s back. It wasn’t at all the way she touched Ward. These were firmer, almost clinical strokes, massaging what remained of Harold’s wasting muscles.

“What are you doing?” Ward had asked, “Where’s the nurse?”

“I sent her home,” Joy replied, with more authority than Ward was expecting. “She was just making it worse.”

“What do you mean?” Ward argued, “She’s a professional, Joy...”

“Yeah, well, dad didn’t like her,” Joy snapped. “He likes it better when I do it. Don’t you, daddy?” Joy gently asked her father.

Harold had replied with a noise of confirmation. “See?” she continued, “He wants us to do this. He told me so.”

“To do what?” Ward protested, “Give him his injections? Take his blood pressure? I don’t even know how to do any of that, Joy...”

“He doesn’t want the injections anymore,” Joy had said quietly, her voice quivering. “He said he’s done with the chemo.”

Ward regarded her with a mix of sadness and confusion, and a little bit of suppressed outrage. How dare his father do this to them, on top of everything else. _Didn’t he know how much they were suffering already?_

“I need to speak with Ward alone,” Harold had croaked. 

Joy looked confused. “Are you sure, daddy?” she asked, “Whatever you need to say, you can say in front of me... I’m not afraid of anything,” she promised.

“I know you’re not,” Harold had assured her, “but please let me have a moment alone with Ward, dear.”

With reluctant obedience, Joy had acquiesced. She rolled Harold onto his back and adjusted his pillows to his satisfaction before leaving Ward alone in the room with him.

What had followed then had been one of the most horrible and significant moments in Ward’s life. That was the night that his father told him that Ward would be taking over the company, effective immediately. It had seemed ludicrous at the time, with Harold insisting that he would somehow be able to direct things in absentia while Ward served as some kind of surrogate for him, carrying out his instructions and assuming authority over the entire board of directors. Ward had assumed that his father was out of his mind; that these were the delusional ravings of a dying man. Maybe the cancer had spread to his brain. Ward tried to be patient with him and not get argumentative, even when Harold suggested that Ward arrange to take night classes through the university since he’d have too much on his plate throughout the day to focus on his studies. _Sure, dad. Sounds great._

Then, when Ward had asked how his father intended to direct the company from beyond the grave—since the timeline he was outlining didn’t appear to account for his imminent death—Harold’s answer seemed to confirm his suspicion of dementia. 

“I won’t be dying after all, son... not anymore... I’ve found a cure.”

“A cure for cancer?” Ward had flatly retorted. “Wow, dad. That’s incredible. What are we doing wasting our time talking about Rand, then, huh? I mean, if you’ve found the cure for cancer and all... seems that’s where we should be putting our energy.”

“Not _the_ cure,” Harold had snapped, “ _A_ cure. For me. Nobody else.”

“Uh huh...” Ward didn’t like what he was seeing in his father’s eyes; it was a little but frightening. “Hey, maybe we should get that nurse back over here, huh? She can help you, dad. I don’t know how to deal with this.”

“Just follow my instructions, Ward. It’s really very simple.” 

The dissonance between Harold’s authoritarian veneer and his skeletal, diminutive form was actually a pretty disturbing thing to behold. Ward found it difficult to look at him.

“Come on, dad... do you really want Joy to have to see you like this? Wouldn’t you rather have the nurse look after your bed sores?”

“Joy is a lot stronger than you giver her credit for, son,” Harold insisted, “and I can’t have any doctors or nurses or anyone else prying into my business, now. This has to look natural.”

“What are you talking about?” Ward complained, running his hands down his face.

_“My recovery.”_

* * *

He thought he’d recognized it for what it was. God, he wished he had been right. He was so sure that his father was only dealing with death the only way he knew how: by acting like he was in control. It had looked like desperation, like madness. He supposed that it was, after all; just not in the way he’d thought. The reality, he’d later learn, was so much worse than anything he could have imagined back then... 

He’d thought his father was a monster before, but he hadn’t seen anything yet. He used to think that those cancer days were the hardest days of his life. Now he wishes he could go back to that simpler time.

_But then again..._

His relationship with Joy wasn’t so simple. 

It was easy to blame his father for what happened next, but Ward knows that wouldn’t be the whole truth. Yes, the situation that he and Joy were placed in was unbearable; impossible to deal with in any healthy, rational way. And yes, Harold had done nothing to mitigate their isolation; had actually orchestrated it, forcing them to be dependent on each other and no one else, aside from the spectral puppet master that he’d now become. And, yes: by denying Joy of the hideous truth about his second chance at life, Harold had ensured that Joy would be utterly dependent on Ward, for everything. Ward would take on the role of brother and father—caretaker and sole companion—to his sister. He would be all that she had left in the world, and he hardly realized the burden that role would place on him at the time, at such a young age. Likewise, he hadn’t realized, yet, how central Joy would become in his own life; how his resentment toward his father would only make his bond with Joy stronger, making her the only good thing he had left to cling to. He didn’t realize how much he needed her; how desperate he was for compassion; for affection; for adoration. 

A stronger person might have been able to put his own needs aside, or at least to channel them in a healthier way. But Ward had never been that strong. He was damaged, deeply, by a lifetime of let-downs and put-downs and soul-level dissatisfaction, despite all of his so-called ‘privilege.’ He didn’t have the psychological tools necessary to deal with any of it, so he looked outside of himself for relief, finding something resembling comfort in drugs and alcohol. A natural addict, through and through. And he didn’t know it yet, but what he’d become addicted to most wasn’t a what, but a who. One person who did more for him than any drug ever could. One addiction that, once it took hold in him, he’d never be able to break.

* * *

The night that his father died had been horrible. The night that he came back was far worse.

Just thinking about it induces a small panic attack. The extent of the trauma of that harrowing experience had marked Ward; had left him with a legacy of body memory that would never be eradicated. Possibly the worst part of all—or at least the most jarring—was that _laugh_... the way that his father (or the thing resembling his father) had laughed at him when he’d seen the expression on his son’s face; the terror, the shock, the complete and utter _hopelessness_ at knowing that, somehow, his father had actually done it. Ward had thought he was finally free. _Fuck the money, fuck the clauses and conditions and every feeble, desperate attempt his father had made to control Ward’s life even after he was finally gone..._ Ward thought he’d find a way out. He’d thought that Harold was really gone for good. He’d thought wrong.

When he got home that night, Ward went straight for the liquor cabinet. He’d demanded the keys from the housekeeper immediately after informing her that his father had died. It wasn’t his proudest moment, but he can’t deny that it felt good, nonetheless. Harold was gone. He was in charge, now. The ‘man of the house.’ If he’d known how short-lived his power trip would be, he might have milked it even more. 

It was Joy, of course, who walked in on him that night, finding him drunk and bleeding in their ‘dead’ father’s study. When she asked him what had happened, where he’d been all night... when she asked who hit him this time... he wanted so _badly_ to tell her everything. He wanted someone to share in his misery, someone who could understand the horror of his experience, who could sympathize, tell him that it was wrong, that it was so _fucked up_ what Harold had done, what Harold was doing. But when he looked at her and saw the concern on her pretty face; saw the way she only wanted to help him, to take his pain away, even when she was already suffering so much herself, devastated as she was by the loss of her father... he couldn’t do it. He remembered the warning his father had given about what could happen if Joy found out, and he made up his mind to swallow it all down; to keep it all to himself. To lie. To protect. 

So he just let her think that he’d gotten into a fight with a bouncer who knew he was underage; that he’d gotten kicked out of a club. She couldn’t understand why he’d want to go partying at a time like this, with their father freshly buried _. “Dad’s **dead** , Ward... don’t you even care?”_ she’d asked him, holding back tears as she wiped the blood from his face. When he reached for the bottle again, she tried to stop him; that’s when she realized his arm was injured. He’d said he just needed something for the pain. She’d suggested going to the hospital. He’d insisted he just needed to sleep it off. Yeah, it had hurt; but that’s not the only reason he needed to drink. He drank because of the memory of his father doing it to him, getting physically forceful when Ward had resisted his agenda. 

“Hey, do you wanna know something?” Ward had asked as he stared at his sister, who was curled up beside him on the plush leather sofa, wiping at his bloodied brow. 

“What.”

“Dad wasn’t such a nice guy,” Ward slurred.

Joy paused, narrowing her eyes at her brother. “Why would you say that?” she asked quietly, her tone icy.

Ward regarded her uncertainly for a moment, his bleary eyes shifting between fear and defiance. “Because ‘s true. Trust me. You don’t know him as well as you think you do.”

“You’re being an asshole, Ward,” Joy spat, her eyes tearing up. Ward didn’t mean to hurt her, but it had to be said.

“He made me do it,” Ward muttered.

“Do what?”

“He made me give it all up. For Rand. He’s making me run the company, Joy. _Me_. It’s all on me, now.”

“You’re not making any sense,” Joy replied. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, Ward. Dad’s gone. You can do whatever you want.”

“No. I can’t.” Ward sighed, his face a picture of abject misery. “He fixed it. Either I do this or I’m out. We both are.”

“What are you saying? What about our inheritance?”

“There will be no inheritance if I don’t do what dad says. He wants me to run the company, and you too, someday,” Ward confided, taking his sister by the shoulders and fixing an intense look on her, “Don’t you see? We’re trapped...”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Joy objected, confused and a little frightened by Ward’s emotional display.

“He would,” Ward insisted, “and he already did. I found out today, Joy. This is the way it is. We’re fucking trapped.”

Scared for her brother and not sure how she should respond to his desperation, Joy pulled him in for a hug. He melted into her, sobbing into her shoulder. “You’re scaring me,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Ward mumbled against her, “I’m so fucking sorry, Joy. _I’m sorry_...”

“It’s all right, Ward,” Joy tried to assure him, racking her exhausted brain for the right words in that moment, “it’s going to be all right... We can get through this. We can get through anything... we just have to stick together, okay?”

“Yeah,” Ward agreed, wiping his eyes and sniffing wetly before holding her tighter to him, “Yeah...”

“It’s just us, now,” Joy said softly, willing her voice not to crack. “Just you and me. You have to remember that, Ward.”

“I know.”

“You have to stop hurting yourself like this,” she elaborated. “I mean it, Ward; I hate it when I don’t know where you are... and I hate it when you come home like this." Joy’s voice grew smaller and smaller as she asked, "What would I do if you never came back?”

Ward pulled back enough for Joy to see the serious expression on his face. “I will _always_ come back, Joy. I’m not going to leave you alone with... without him.”

“Do you promise?” Joy asked, tears falling down her cheeks.

“Yeah,” Ward smiled, his eyes still heavy with sadness as he stroked her tears away with his thumb, “I promise.”

“I love you, Ward,” Joy whispered, looking back at him like she needed something more from him, like his promise wasn’t enough.

“I...” Ward choked, still physically unable to say the damn words, even now, when she clearly needed to hear them. “I...”

_Fuck_... she looked so desperate, so needy, and he wanted to reciprocate, wanted to reassure her that he felt the same way, but the words stuck in his throat and he was sure if he managed to croak them out at all, that they’d just come out all wrong. But she was looking at him so desperately and he wanted so badly to fix it, to _do something_...

He can’t remember if it happened slowly or if it happened all at once; if he leaned in first or if she did... he can’t even remember how long it lasted. But he definitely remembers kissing her. He remembers tasting her tears, and tasting something so sweet underneath that initial saltiness. He remembers the warmth that radiated over his whole body, and how for one long moment the whole world stopped. All of it. Time; past and future; everything that had already happened or that might yet happen to him; the rotation of the very planets and the burning light of the stars over their heads... it all stopped, the way his father’s heart had. Everything, blown out of existence. Everything but the two of them. He could’ve easily stayed in that moment forever.

And when the lights came back on and the world started up again, just like his father’s dead heart had done, it all came back wrong. Everything looked the same, but it really wasn’t. Even when Joy smiled at him as if nothing had changed—as if they were still the same two people that they were only minutes ago—he knew better. That kiss was a small death; the cardiac arrest of their bitterly lonely and increasingly grotesque two-person world. In that death, Ward found the freedom and release he’d been craving, if only for a moment. 

He’d just gotten a taste of the greatest fix of his life. Addiction was a foregone conclusion... as were the consequences. 


	4. Chapter 4

He had to get out of that office. The cleaning staff would be arriving in a couple of hours, and he didn’t want any awkward encounters. He wondered if he was good to drive... the room didn’t appear to be spinning and his stomach contents weren’t trying to abscond from his body...

“Whoa... ooookay. Not good to drive,” Ward murmured aloud after lifting himself off the couch and realizing that his body in motion felt markedly different from when he was sitting still. Bracing himself against the arm of the sofa, he took a moment to assess his next move. His office bathroom felt so far away it might as well have been another country. _Maybe he wouldn’t even need to vomit, if he could just focus on something else..._

Transportation. That’s what he needed. Driving was off the table. There was always the company car service, but those guys all knew each other, and he even though discretion was a component of their job, he had to be hypervigilant about avoiding the slightest whiff of scandal after the latest corporate leadership reshuffle. 

Uber Lux would have to suffice. _If he could figure out how to pull up the app, that is..._ His phone’s touchscreen didn’t seem to want to cooperate with him. 

“No, I don’t need to recover my passcode... I know my goddamned passcode...” Ward cursed at his phone after the fifth failed attempt to unlock it. As he entered the code again, he read it out loud, slowly and patronizingly, as if the phone were capable of taking offense.

_“Oooone.... Ooooone... Niiiiiiine... Zeeeeeeroooo....”_

As if he could ever forget Joy’s birthday. New Years’ baby; one/one. The first of the first. The one and only. She’d been born just after midnight on New Year’s Day, 1990. It made her feel special, the way everyone would always celebrate with a big party the night before, counting down the hours, minutes, and even the seconds until the clock struck midnight, whereupon everyone would toss confetti and make loud noises in celebration: _It’s Joy’s birthday!!!_

Ward couldn’t remember the actual day she was born—he’d only been three years old at the time—but he’d heard the stories often enough. His parents had been at a New Year’s Eve costume party when his mother went into labor. He’d seen the pictures, of his mother’s face with all that smeared makeup; glitter everywhere, her hair wild with streaks of neon blue sprayed across the frizzy blonde strands, and his father beside her, looking as out of place as he’d ever seen him in that ridiculous get-up. It was strange to think that he’d been happy, once; that his father had been in love; that he’d been the kind of man that would don face paint and clownish clothing to make someone else happy. 

He could remember many other birthdays, though. All those New Year’s kisses, “for good luck.” The only time he could kiss her in public without anyone noticing anything unusual. She’d loved that; a kiss that appeared chaste—silly, even—to onlookers, who were all too drunk or distracted to recognize it for what it was (a dare... a secret game... playing chicken with public perception; with each other’s restraint). Eventually it would become all that he had left; the only occasion she’d let him kiss her, at all. _If he’d known it would be the last time, at that company party three years ago..._

It makes him sick to think about it. He didn’t think she’d still be punishing him, after all that time. He wondered why she’d even let him kiss her at all, then, that last time; _was it the champagne? A sentimental lapse of better judgement spurred by the festive atmosphere? Was it her way of reminding him what he’d lost (as if he needed reminding)? ...Or did she miss it, too?_

The year after that, she’d attended a party in Belize with friends on New Year’s Eve. Her friends. Ward hadn’t been invited. He tried not to take it personally; he could wait another year. He could be patient. But then last year she didn’t even show up to the company party, with no notice or explanation. He remembers looking for her, checking his watch over and over, feeling like some schmuck who’d gotten stood up at the dance. Well before the countdown started, he realized she wasn’t coming. “Where’s your sister?” everyone kept asking him. He’d made excuses like a natural, never revealing how painful the question was to hear. Over and over. “Where’s Joy?” As if it were strange to see one without the other. As if he looked wrong, there, nursing his drink all by himself; as if some part of him was visibly missing, like he was walking around without a limb or something. _Where did your arm go, Ward? Who tore it off?_

The only time he’d felt that lonely on New Year’s Eve had been back in 2004, a couple months after his father had died. Christmas had been a non-event that year, with all the chaos following the death (and the resurrection), with the orphaned siblings scrambling to pack up their entire lives and relocate to Danny Rand’s old house in the city, per their father’s explicit wishes. Harold had been making Ward’s life a living nightmare ever since revealing himself to his son, with his endless lists of errands and demands. Keeping it all from Joy had been particularly difficult to navigate, given how dependent she’d become on Ward for everything, including his companionship. “Where are you going, now?” She was always asking him, frustrated and sad, “When will you be back?” 

He could only imagine what she thought he was really up to. She obviously wasn’t buying his lame excuses, and her suspicion became a force of its own around the home. Once, just _once_ , he’d told her that he had a date, one night when she caught him heading out to meet with his father. The look on her face was so scary that it was almost laughable. She’d toned it down after that, but he’d seen flashes of that look on other occasions when he’d left her by herself, despite whatever he’d tell her he had to do. The jealousy radiating off her had been palpable. 

So that New Year’s Eve, he arranged to have all of his most urgent tasks completed by the end of the day, ensuring that nothing would come between them. He bought some turquoise balloons and silver confetti and some of the sparklers she loved so much, and ordered her favorite marzipan princess cake from an uptown Swedish bakery. The atmosphere around the new house had been too cold and empty since they’d moved in, and he hoped that this little surprise would help cheer things up a bit. He wanted her to be happy; to know that she was loved.

But when he walked though the door, arms laden with bags and balloons, he was surprised to find the house completely quiet. He called out for her, but there was no reply. On the first floor landing he found a note in her distinctive handwriting:

_WARD: Going out with Becky and Kristen._  
_Don’t wait up._  
_Love,_  
_Joy_  
_xo_

He’d left the bags and the balloons right there on the landing, heading straight for the liquor cabinet. It took him less than twenty minutes of deliberation before he decided to call her cell phone, but it just went to voicemail. 

“Uh, Joy, it’s Ward... sooooooo... I got your note.... aaaaand... there wasn’t a lot of information. It’s 6:30. I’m home. I thought...... you should have _told_ me, okay? You can’t just... _leave_... without telling me where you’re going. I don’t even know what this means... are you going to be sleeping at one of their houses or something? Should I call their parents? ...I’m not trying to embarrass you... I just, like... need to know that you’re okay. Just call me, please. Bye.”

He’d spent the night in front of the television, flipping from station to station, counting down the hours with nobody to keep him company but his trusty glass of bourbon. He’d watched the countdown carefully, wondering if he might spot Joy and her friends in the crowd at Times Square. She hadn’t answered her phone, yet, and the ball was about to drop. 2005 rolled in with televised fanfare. Ward frowned at Regis and Dick Clark as he muted the television, then reached for his phone to try to wish Joy a happy birthday. No answer. 

It wasn’t until after 2:00am that he heard the booming bass of an obnoxious subwoofer outside, and looked out the window to see a souped up sports car parked outside the house. He didn’t recognize the vehicle, but somehow he just knew that Joy was in it. He’d hurried downstairs, determined to investigate. By the time he’d reached the doorway, he’d just caught a glimpse of the guy driving as Joy closed the passenger side door. 

“Bye,” she’d waved, looking way too pleased with herself.

“Who was that?” Ward demanded.

“What are you doing out here?” Joy countered. “It’s, like, 2:00am...”

“No kidding,” Ward sarcastically retorted, “Where the hell were you? And who was that guy??”

“I left you a note,” Joy shrugged, slipping past Ward as she stepped onto the landing.

“Yeah, saying you were ‘out’ with Becky and Kristen, Joy; not with some random dude! I tried calling you, why didn’t you answer your phone?”

“I got your message,” Joy murmured as she stepped out of her Lanvin kitten pumps, “and it was pretty fucking hypocritical, honestly.”

“What??”

“You’re going out _all the time_ , and I never know where you are, so why should it be any different for me?” Joy argued. 

“No, no no no no... that’s not the same thing,” Ward insisted. “I’ve got _work_ to do, Joy.”

“Oh, sure... ‘work,’ Ward. In the middle of the night.”

“If I could get it all done in the day, I would, Joy, believe me, but there aren’t enough goddamned hours in the day to finish all the shit I have to do to keep things going. You have _no idea_ what kind of pressure I’m under.”

“Yeah, well, it must suck to be you,” Joy shrugged, heading for the stairs. When she noticed the balloons, she paused.

“And I’m eighteen, now, Joy; a legal adult. So I can go wherever I want. You’re only fourteen!”

Joy gave him a dirty look before coldly replying, “Not as of the last two hours, I’m not.”

Ward shook his head, annoyed both at his blunder and at her naiveté. He took a deep breath and sighed before replying, “Happy birthday, Joy. But fifteen is hardly an adult.”

“Whatever than means,” Joy rolled her eyes. “I’m old enough.”

“For what, exactly?” Ward challenged.

“Wouldn’t you like to know...” Joy smirked before peering into one of the bags on the floor. “Is that cake?”

“So you’re not going to tell me who that guy was?” Ward tried again, his voice going dark.

Joy lifted the cake box out of the paper bag, inspecting the embossed design on the top as she nonchalantly replied, “Just a friend of Kristen’s brother. He offered to give me a ride home.”

Ward studied her cool expression, looking for any clues he might find there, but seeing nothing but an apparent interest in Swedish confections. 

“Ooooh, is this princess cake?” Joy asked, peeking inside the box.

Reluctantly accepting the futility of his questioning, Ward resigned to change gears. “There’s sparklers in one of the bags,” he unenthusiastically informed her.

“Cool.”

“I wanted to surprise you,” he muttered.

“You did.”

“Earlier,” Ward sighed, “I thought you’d be here. I thought we’d... you know. Have a little thing, here. For your birthday.”

“That’s nice,” Joy offered, peering into another bag. “I like the balloons. Cool color.”

“Turquoise,” Ward shrugged. “Your favorite, right?”

“Seafoam,” Joy corrected.

“What?”

“Seafoam is my favorite color.”

“What the hell is ‘seafoam’?” Ward asked.

“Like a bluish green...”

“Uh, yeah, turquoise...”

“No, it’s lighter. Like mint, but not exactly.”

“Seafoam.” 

“Yep. But these are nice, too...” Then Joy noticed the little brown box on the table. “What’s this?”

“A package came for you,” Ward shrugged, uncertainly. “No return address.”

Joy turned it over curiously for a moment before picking at the side of the packing tape, trying not to mess up her manicure as she carefully peeled it open. Ward watched her nervously, having been bothered by the mystery box ever since he found it with the mail.

“It wasn’t forwarded here,” Ward noted as Joy broke the seal, “Who even has our new address already?”

Inside was a note on familiar card stock. Joy gasped. “It’s from dad...”

“What??” Ward breathed, not believing his father would ever reveal himself to Joy after everything he’d said about the absolute necessity for secrecy. _What kind of fucked up mind game was he playing, now?_

Joy held a hand to her mouth, tears filling her eyes as she read the note. 

“What does it say?” Ward asked. Joy handed it to her brother silently as she reached in the box for the gift underneath the note.

 _“Dearest Joy,”_ it had read, _“I’m so sorry that I couldn’t stick around long enough to share one last birthday with you. By the time you read this I may be gone, but know that in my own way I will always be with you. Please remember that when you wear this. You will always be my precious girl._

_All my love,_

_forever,_

_Dad.”_

Ward was seething inside at the audacity of the message, but tried to swallow it down and appear somber as he looked back toward Joy. She was holding up a diamond heart necklace and biting her lip as tears began to spill over her cheeks.

“He s-sent me a birthday present,” Joy breathed, her voice small and sad. “...before he died...”

As she broke down in sobs, Ward pulled her in for a tight hug. She cried against his neck as he stood on the landing, next to a gently swaying bundle of off-color balloons, and he marveled at how differently the night had gone compared to his expectations earlier that day. Of course, his father had somehow found a way of adding his own finishing touch to top it all off...

Yeah, that particular New Year had been especially shitty. But at least Joy came back in the end. The last two didn’t end in tearful reunions, or reunions of any kind whatsoever. One had ended with Ward obsessively refreshing Joy’s instagram page, hoping to learn more about her time in Belize than she was willing to share with him. The other had ended with him getting a lackluster blowjob from Cindy from HR in the executive bathroom, who somehow managed to make cumming a chore. _Actually, it hadn’t been Cindy’s fault. She’d made a decent effort. It was Ward who couldn’t get over the fact that her heavy brown bangs were getting in the way of her bright blue eyes. Bangs just didn’t do it for him..._

Ward fumbled with the Uber Lux app, making sure he set the option for not wanting any conversation with the driver. Eventually, he was able to order the ride. _“Your driver will arrive in ten minutes.” Shit. Time to move._

_Keys. Wallet. Phone. Coat... What else?_

As he composed himself, his mind kept wandering back to memories of New Years’ kisses. Especially that last one. He’d sensed some timidity that time, as if Joy was more keenly aware of any curious eyes that might be on them. Or maybe that had just been all him, projecting his own insecurities onto her... After all, Joy had always been the bold one.

_God, could she be bold._

It was one of the best times he’d ever had, that night in the unreal luxury resort in Cancun. They’d been in Mexico to finalize a contract with the developer of a new biologic, and Ward was high on the success of having closed the deal in front of Joy, who had just taken on a more active role in the company following her year abroad. Ward was showing her the ropes, and was eager to impress her. In the time she’d been away, he’d really found his stride at Rand; despite his father’s ‘guidance,’ Ward had struggled to really assert himself as the rightful heir to the enterprise. He’d felt like nothing more than a puppet, with no real drive behind his endeavors, motivated only by fear and obligation. Lately, though, he’d started to grow into a kind of power of his own—as conditional as it was—which he was learning how to use to his advantage. 

So when Joy came back after what felt like a small lifetime away from her, Ward couldn’t wait to show her how much he’d changed. He’d had a feeling that she’d respond well to his new and improved veneer of authority and confidence. He’d been right.

After the deal went through without a hitch, the two of them decided to skip out on dinner with the lawyers and check in to a high-end resort that had been recommended to them. Ward felt that he’d earned it. They were already a little tipsy from celebratory drinks when they approached the front desk to pick up their keys, so when Joy wrapped her arm around Ward’s neck and slid her fingers through his hair, he was only somewhat caught off guard by the display. It wasn’t until she opened her mouth that she really surprised him.

“There’s been a mistake,” she told the desk manager. “We didn’t ask for separate rooms. My fiance and I were actually hoping for a suite.”

Ward swallowed as he slid his eyes over to his sister, who was smirking back at him mischievously. “Something nice,” Joy added, her tone dripping with entitlement as she smiled at the man behind the counter. “We’re rich.”

“Let me see what I can do,” the man had smiled back. “Ah, it looks like the penthouse is actually available...”

“We’ll take it,” Ward quickly agreed, pulling out his most ostentatious, heavy credit card and slamming it on the counter with an air of finality. He turned back to Joy, who was smirking maniacally at him. “Will that do, sweetheart?”

Joy regarded him hungrily for a moment before moving in, slowly and deliberately, for one long, blood-rousing kiss that simultaneously bridged the long, _long_ gap of waiting and concretized how their little game of public pretense would play out, promising much more to come _if he was willing_... And he _absolutely_ was.

When she finally pulled away from him, they both looked thoroughly drunk with arousal. Even the desk manager, consummate professional that he was, appeared slightly affected by the display. 

“Very good, sir,” he’d said as he handed Ward back his card. “If you’d just sign here, I can have your bags taken up right away. Raoul will show you to your penthouse. If there’s anything you require, please don’t hesitate to ask. There is a dedicated line for you to call the front desk, 24/7, which you’ll find in the pamphlet...”

Ward hadn’t been listening to the man’s little orientation spiel, with the way Joy was looking at him. They were eye fucking each other right there in the lobby, for the whole world to witness, and neither one seemed to care. 

“Yeah, um, we’re going to go, now,” Ward had interrupted. The man appeared unphased, nodding politely and gesturing for Raoul. 

Ward can’t even remember what happened between the front desk and stepping into that incredible penthouse. There might have been a short ride on a golf cart. Or maybe that was some other time. He just has a very long series of very graphic memories involving fucking his sister in just about every way possible on just about every possible surface; it had been the most gratuitous, carnal, insatiable sex of his entire life; at twenty two years old Joy had been kinky as fuck, wanting to do everything on the menu. _She just couldn’t get enough._ And at twenty five—and after waiting a whole year just to see her again, wondering what it would be like between them when she came back—Ward had had just enough stamina to keep up with her. 

At some point in that dreamlike haze that encompassed his memories of Cancun, he remembers relaxing with her in a gorgeous tiled jacuzzi in the resort’s spa, with other couples wandering around obliviously, paying the two of them little mind. They had no idea that the beautiful young woman pressing her body up against the fit young man in the steamy jacuzzi was his sister, or that under all that churning, jet-blown water, that man was sliding his hand all the way up his sister’s thigh, squeezing her leg teasingly as she breathed heavily against him, arching her back and thrusting her hips towards him longingly while he slowly teased at the edge of her bikini bottom, his fingers making long, lazy strokes over the fabric, just grazing her clit enough for her to make those little sounds of need that he just couldn’t get enough of. And when he did finally breach the thin barrier of that bikini with a dexterous middle finger, nobody had any idea how hard it was for him not to come when he felt not only how impossibly wet she was, but how swollen she was with intense arousal. His finger had slid in all the way past the knuckle when she stifled a moan in his mouth, and he swallowed it greedily. They were both overwhelmed by heightened sensation, taking it slow in order to take it all in, to savor this wild, new experience. He’d never been so completely hammered with lust before; the mutual thrill of knowing what they were getting away with in that very public place was more intoxicating than anything he’d ever experienced. It had all the danger and pent-up need and forbidden ecstasy of that first time, but with the added bonuses of exhibitionism and hot mineral water. _Can-fucking-cun._ He’d jerked off to that exact memory more times than he could count.

 _“Your driver has arrived at your destination.” Goddamn it._ He willed his erection to calm down, not wanting to be “that guy” when he got into the Uber. Luckily, for once, the drug cocktail in his system had a way of making his libido an unsustainable force. _I’ve got this..._

His irrepressible trip down memory lane, however, had miles yet to go.


	5. Chapter 5

The driver held the passenger door open for Ward as he approached, looking for all the world like a man of substance. If his gait was slightly wobbly or his eyes a bit bleary, he hid it well. He’d had a lifetime of practice. 

His veneer of self-importance crumbled, however, as soon as the door closed behind him. The black Range Rover was not what he was expecting; all that space around him made him feel somewhat insignificant. Ward smoothed his hand over the ivory leather of the large, empty seat stretching out to his left, imagining the ghostly impressions of previous riders alongside him. This was the kind of car spoiled Upper East Side kids rented when they went party hopping; in fact, he had a feeling that was probably what it was last used for. It looked and smelled immaculate, but still seemed to carry the ephemeral air of “party car.” 

“Who ’s in here before me?” Ward asked, projecting his voice for the driver to hear as the car started moving. 

The driver glanced back at him briefly in the rear view mirror, looking surprised. “Is there a problem, sir?” He asked.

“No problem. No problem...” Ward muttered, staring at the empty seat with a forlorn kind of expression, “I just wanna know.”

The driver paused for a moment, ostensibly considering the wisdom in engaging in conversation with a man who explicitly requested no conversation, before replying, “I’m not allowed to divulge that information, sir. It would be a breach of privacy.”

“I’m not asking you for names,” Ward drolly replied, “I just wanna know who was in here before me... ’s a simple question.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the driver apologized. “I’m not allowed to answer that.”

Ward stared at the man blearily through the rear view mirror for a long, loaded beat, allowing the tension to mount before falling back against his seat with a sigh. “Fine. Don’t tell me. I can guess. I probably already know the answer.”

Ward looked out his window for a moment, squinting at the too-bright glow from the passing street lights. He wished he could turn them off; that he could burn out light bulbs with his mind. The world would be a much darker place if he had his way.

“Do you ever wonder who changes all those light bulbs?” Ward mused, frowning at the view outside. “Somebody’s gotta do it, right? But when? I’ve never seen anybody do it...”

The driver was opting for silence. It made no difference.

“...Or maybe I have, and I just never really noticed what I ’s looking at, you know? I might’ve been looking right at the guy while he did ’s job, but didn’t even see ’m. Just looked right through him, like he didn’t exist... like my brain is just programmed not to see that kind of thing, since ’s just useless information, essentially... not worthy of firing a synapse about. Do you know what I’m saying?”

Ward leaned forward in his seat and looked toward the man as if listening to his response, his face seemingly processing external information though the driver never said a word.

“No... that’s not right,” he argued, apparently with himself, “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about those guys, specifically. Changing the bulbs. Sure, all kinds of other people get ignored. I’ll give you that. The homeless, for instance. But the difference is you still _see_ those people, even if you ignore them... do you get it? There’s a big difference.”

Ward sighed deeply, slouching back against the seat with his legs spread out. He rolled his head to the side with exaggerated weariness to survey the empty space again. After awhile, a new thought occurred to him. 

“You ever drive a limo before?”

“I have, sir,” the driver quietly conceded.

“I bet you think guys like me ride in limos all the time,” Ward sneered, “but you’d be surprised. The first time I rode in one was when I took my sister to the prom.”

Ward huffed a dark laugh to himself, recalling the occasion. “Fuck. That was such a long time ago. She looked so fucking pretty. I know everyone says shit like that, but I swear to God, she was a _vision_... fucking prom night.”

As if sensing the man’s curiosity, Ward flicked his eyes to the rear view mirror, unsurprised to catch the driver’s eyes on him before they darted back to the road. Ward’s face twisted in a half-smile, half grimace before he sucked on his teeth, as if pulling the thought back inside, training his face into a more neutral expression. His eyes went in and out of focus from the effort, and he took a moment to compose himself before continuing, his tone low and gravelly, “It wasn’t a kindness, if that’s what you’re thinking. I didn’t offer to take her to the prom because she couldn’t get a date or anything. She’d had one, as a matter of fact, but the guy turned out to be a fucking loser. She could always pick ‘em, my sister...” he muttered sarcastically. “No. That’s not why I went... I went because I knew what they were up to, those so-called ‘friends’ of hers. She thought I didn’t know, but I did.” Lost in thought for a long beat, it almost seemed Ward’s story was over until he asked, “You ever heard of a ‘virginity pact’?”

The driver glanced up at his strange passenger briefly before Ward elaborated, “Kids these days... right? ...Or was it just in those days? Maybe they don’t do that kind of shit anymore, in the age of the smartphone... maybe they have better things to do, like make those ‘snap chat’ memes or whateverthefuck...”

A look of disgust passed over Ward’s face and he closed his eyes as he tilted his head back, allowing his body to digest the unpleasant emotion before he continued. “She was too smart for that sort of thing... even at that age she knew better. But...” he sighed, “that didn’t stop her from playing along anyway. I don’t know... maybe she wanted to hurt me. That’s probably why she went along with it... or maybe she just wanted me to _think_ that she was going along with it... because she knew how I’d react. Well, if that’s the case, then you got me, Joy. You got me good.”

Ward made a smacking noise, as if there was a bad taste in his mouth. His head still resting back against the seat, he opened his eyes a fraction, looking toward the driver with slitted eyelids as he tiredly remarked, “She always gets what she wants.”

Maybe it was something inside of him—something, somewhere, that was broken—some inherent weakness that made it easy for his father to manipulate him into doing his bidding. Sure, he had a rebellious streak; he’d put up a fight, more or less. But even so, he lost... over and over. Maybe that’s why he’d allowed Joy to influence him into doing what he did; maybe part of him liked not being in control, or, for whatever reason, ‘not being in control’ was his simply comfort zone. It was an easy enough excuse. 

He supposed there were other factors; their mutual sadness, their loneliness, their desperation... their need to feel close to each other, to find security and comfort in knowing that each needed the other with the same degree of devotion; to know that the intensity of feeling was shared. That intensity was something tangible; something they could measure, compare, and cultivate. Somehow, it wasn’t enough for Joy to know that her brother loved her. The concept of fraternal love was too abstract, too nebulous to rely on. It wasn’t a given. She needed him to _prove_ it. She needed more from him than the tenuous bond that the average brother-sister relationship provided, since she couldn’t seem to grasp the limits of that bond. So she reworked those limits, herself; tested them, traced them, learned how they operated... where their weaknesses were. And then she set about breaking them down, one by one, and in their place she created a new, more powerful bond between Ward and herself; one with new limits. One that felt entirely more consequential. 

Perhaps he should have seen it coming. Maybe he could have stopped it before it went too far. But the truth of the matter is that he let it happen. He could blame the addict in him for succumbing to such a hideous temptation; he could blame his father for driving him into such a mad kind of desperation, one that found an unexpected outlet for all his pain and resentment; he could even reduce his blame to the effect of an excess of hormones between two ungrounded, unsupervised teenagers. But none of that negates the plain, cold fact that he _wanted_ _it_ , too, and in the end, that was enough.

So when Joy started sleeping in his room, again, not long after they’d moved into the old Rand residence, Ward didn’t object. His new bedroom was larger than his old one, with plenty of dark, unfamiliar spaces that felt unsettling enough in the nighttime without thoughts of Danny Rand’s parents’ ghosts creeping around in them. And even though Joy had initially seemed comfortable with the idea of sleeping in Danny’s old room, something was troubling her enough to make her knock on Ward’s door again and again, so often that eventually she didn’t even bother knocking anymore. Sometimes she’d just crawl into bed beside him and fall asleep. Sometimes she’d trace gentle fingers over his back, even if he was already half asleep. Other times, when Ward was more awake, she’d ask him to do hers. He’d oblige, and they fell into the old habit so easily again. 

It seemed so natural, the way it progressed. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, in the haze of half-awake awareness, Ward’s fingers would stray into Joy’s ticklish zone, and he’d tiredly marvel at her reactions. In his mind, he wasn’t deliberately _trying_ to get her aroused, but would observe her slight changes in breathing and body language with a distant curiosity before retreating back to more neutral territory. If she’d complain; if she’d try to tell him that ‘it felt good,’ what he was doing before, he’d pretend not to know what she meant, and would usually yawn and tell her he was done, then. 

It got trickier when she started learning how to generate similar reactions from him. 

She knew that his ticklish zone was off-limits, so the challenge was in navigating around it. A light touch over his sides would make him squirm away, but a firm hand resting on his waist, for instance, seemed to be allowed. He’d notice her left hand becoming more and more familiar while her right hand was preoccupied with the back tracing, usually right around the time she was almost finished. Then, by way of announcing that she was done, she’d curl up against her brother affectionately, wrapping her left arm around him and stroking little circles on his chest, sometimes pressing a soft kiss to the back of his neck. Ward’s initial instinct was to still her hand on his chest with his own, squeezing her hand lightly as if to communicate a ‘thank you, good night’ before rolling away from her to sleep. But over time, as the gestures became more familiar, they were allowed to linger, which allowed them to evolve.

Then, as winter transitioned into spring, the shirts started coming off. 

Joy had been coming into his room so often by then, that Ward would feel a distinct emptiness when she wasn’t there. He looked forward to hearing her slip into his room on those late nights after he’d been out dealing with his father, especially after the man had been particularly difficult. If he fell asleep alone on those nights, the nightmares would almost certainly come back. He slept more soundly when Joy was beside him, though he’d startled her on several occasions when he woke from another one of his nightmares. If she was with him she’d soothe him back to sleep, and when she wasn’t, he’d have trouble getting back to sleep at all. 

Feeling Joy’s gentle touch on his bare skin was so comforting to him, and—since he’d usually end up tugging his shirt off, anyhow—he’d started sleeping shirtless just to avoid the extra effort. The first time she found him like that, she seemed pleased. He knew that she also liked the feel of his hands on her skin, so he’d slip his hands under her nightshirts now without a second thought. It had become so casual, that he started hiking up the back of her shirt to expose her skin, and she seemed to like that even more. One night, apparently frustrated at the way his hand could only trace so far up before encountering the bunched-up fabric, Joy carefully and silently lifted off her shirt, entirely. The air between them had been charged for a moment before Ward tentatively picked up where he left off, but after that it had become standard procedure. In the dark beside him, Joy would take her own shirt off, too, and that was that.

Except, of course, it wasn’t. 

It was only a matter of time before she’d get too casual about it; before she’d leave her shirt off even when she’d roll over to work on Ward’s back. And then, when she’d wrap her arm around him in her usual way when she was done, her bare breasts would press up against his skin, and _that_ was a new line being crossed. His breath would catch and he’d try to play it cool, but she _must_ have felt the way his heart would beat stronger in his chest, with her hand against it. Somehow she managed to normalize it to some degree, and he’d come to expect the sensation of her breasts against him at night. It felt good; _she_ felt good. Her body against his. Soon he wasn’t afraid to roll over onto his back, letting her shift closer until her half-naked body was almost on top of his, and he’d stroke her back that way, with his arm around her. _She really liked that._

They were acting like lovers well before they ever became lovers. It was only natural that one behavior followed the other.

It was the summer before Ward’s twentieth birthday when that crucial line was finally crossed; the last line of resistance before all lines became irredeemably compromised. They’d been playing with it for so long that it had been worn down to the filament. 

By this time, Joy—now 16, and keenly aware of her effect on boys, and how to use it—had taken to sleeping in cotton underwear and t-shirts, the latter of which would come off quickly after crawling into bed with Ward. She wasn’t sleeping in his bed as often anymore, especially if she’d been out late with friends––but whenever she felt like it, she knew she could always curl up beside him without an invitation. It had gotten awkward on one particular occasion, several months prior, when Ward made the mistake of taking a girl home with him. Ward hadn’t had particular luck with girls; he was good-looking enough to attract them, but keeping them around was another thing. And when Joy found one in his bed that night, that had been the end of that short-lived relationship. Ward had been upset with her for a couple weeks before he’d gotten too lonely to hold a grudge. 

So one night in June, after an especially rough evening with his father, Ward had come home angry. He couldn’t sleep, and even though Joy hadn’t visited him in awhile, he somehow expected her to come to him that night. Maybe some part of her had heard him needing her, in the same way that some animals seemed to sense when something was wrong. Whatever the case, when she curled up beside him that night, he really did need to feel her body against his. So as soon as she pulled off her t-shirt, he reached for her and pulled her against him tightly, relishing the feel of her soft breasts against his skin. She could sense that something was different that night; the way he held her against him felt needy in a way she hadn’t experienced before, and they were both breathing more heavily than usual. 

He had started first, stroking her back the way she liked as he held her to him, inhaling the scent of her shampoo, loving the weight of her head on his shoulder. As he stroked her back, Joy started drawing slow shapes on Ward’s chest with her free hand, exploring whatever territory was available to her. This was more touching than usual, and it still didn’t feel like enough. Ward’s other arm closed the circle around her, stroking his knuckles down Joy’s arm. She paused for a moment, allowing these long strokes to play out before tilting back just as Ward’s knuckle approached her elbow. His hand landed on her ribs as she repositioned herself, allowing him greater access to her chest. He knew she’d done it deliberately, and he splayed his hand out just under her breast, stroking her soft skin down to her belly, then up again. She seemed to be holding her breath, waiting for it. He didn’t make her wait long. 

With the most careful touch, he began to explore the shape of her breast with his fingertips. Her breath hitched as he ran a thumb over her nipple, and whatever she was feeling in that moment, he must’ve felt something similar as a kind of electric jolt passed through his body at the contact. As his explorations continued, Joy began arching her back further, her breath still shallow. She was running her fingers along his bicep as he touched her, encouraging him to continue. When her leg shifted higher, Ward’s other hand moved to Joy’s hip, steading her as she arched against him, holding her still while his right hand delved beneath her breast, cupping her and squeezing gently, eliciting a small gasp. 

Ward started to imagine the look he’d see on his father’s face, if he had walked in on them, then. He imagined how _furious_ , how completely horrified his father would be to see him touching his sister like that. He was suddenly very hard.

His hand slid away from his sister’s breast and trailed down lower and lower, until his knuckle was brushing against the top of her cotton panties. He imagined his father watching him from behind a soundless glass wall, his expression livid, his eyes warning his degenerate son to _stop this, **right now**_...

Joy was breathing even heavier now, her fingers digging into Ward’s shoulder.

“Is it okay if I touch you here?” Ward mumbled, his voice scratchy. 

“Uh huh...” Joy breathed.

Ward’s knuckle drifted further down, skimming over the surface of the cotton briefs.

“How about here?” He asked, his voice low and gravelly as he teased, “Does that tickle?”

Joy made a sound that was part laugh, part gasp, which he took as encouragement. He started tracing incoherent shapes over the fabric of her panties with his fingers as she squirmed against him, tension mounting inside her.

“What’s the matter, Joy?” Ward breathed, hot and horny, “Do you like that?”

“Yeah,” she whined, sounding even hornier than he did. Ward looked up with a sly grin at the conjured image of his father, who was cursing and banging violently against the imaginary glass, now.

Picturing himself looking straight into his father’s wide, desperate eyes, Ward continued, “What do you want, Joy?” as he slid his fingers deep between her legs, gently toying with her. She let out a small sound that went straight to his cock. His jaw stiffened as he asked, “Do you want me to touch you here?”

“Yes,” she answered in a needy whine.

“Does this feel good?” Ward pressed, circling over her clit with his thumb. The sound she made in response was unintelligible. _“What was that?”_

Ward paused, as if he required an answer. She tried to buck against him, but his other hand held tightly onto her hip. “Tell me you like that,” Ward insisted.

“I do,” Joy huffed.

“Tell me,” Ward instructed. _“Tell me you like it when I touch your pussy.”_

“Ew, Ward,” Joy blurted, breathless and frustrated, “Don’t say that.”

Ward frowned. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No...” Joy whined.

“Then _say it,_ ” he warned her.

“Please...” Joy begged, sliding her hand down to scratch her nails into Ward’s lower back. “Don’t stop...”

 _“Say. It.”_ Ward demanded, enunciating with emphasis. 

Joy ground her teeth together before quietly admitting, “I like it.”

“You like what?” Ward asked, circling her clit again with his thumb.

“I like it when you touch me there,” Joy whined, breathless.

 _“Where?”_ Ward pressed, teasing her clit with tortuously light strokes.

 _“My pussy,”_ Joy cried, moaning as Ward rewarded her by slipping his hand underneath the fabric and sliding his finger between her slick folds.

 _“Holy shit,”_ Ward had breathed when he felt how wet she was, his whispered words drowned out by her moan. His father was banging his head into the glass, now; hard enough to break the skin. Ward growled with a tangled mix of vengeance and lust as he slid a finger deep inside her. Joy cried out in response, and something in the air seemed to shatter. As he mindlessly fingered his sister to a shuddering completion against his hand, Ward watched with glazed eyes as his father’s head exploded in his mind’s fantasy. Blood and brains spewed wetly across the glass. Joy cried weakly into her brother’s skin, panting against him. He held her close, all in a daze. 

He wouldn’t let her back into his room after that. Not for months. He’d been staying out even later than usual, and coming home drunk again. He’d also started locking his door. He tried to obliquely convey that he wasn’t angry with her, but with himself. He was afraid of what he might do; of what else he was capable of. It didn’t help that he couldn’t successfully jerk off to thoughts of anyone else. Whenever he’d get close to climaxing—before he realized he was doing it—fantasies of his sister would take over his masturbatory thoughts, and he’d end up cumming prematurely to an image he never even meant to think about. 

Something was wrong with him, and he didn’t know how to fix it.

One night he forgot to lock his door. Somehow she must have known, _just known_ that he was vulnerable. That she would find him there, drunk and passed out. He never saw her crawl in bed next to him. He just remembers waking up with a hard-on and his sister half asleep in his arms, her pert little ass pressed right up against his crotch. Maybe he thought he was dreaming when he’d slid his hand under her t-shirt and squeezed her breasts, rubbing up against her from behind. In that dreamlike haze he’d dry-humped her through his boxers, his hard-on sliding between her parted legs as he played with her breasts. When she moaned with the sound of an unmet need, his hand slid down to squeeze her pussy through her soaked panties as his thrusts became more urgent. She gripped his hand as it held onto her there, crying out moments before he came all over the inside of his shorts. It had been messy and quick and left them both wanting more than he was willing to give.

Joy was getting restless. So was he, but he had made up his mind to keep it in check. She had other ideas.

When he wouldn’t cave, she started looking elsewhere for satisfaction. He had been powerless to stop her from going out with other guys, and even more powerless to stop himself from experiencing acute distress at the thought of her being groped by them. His life with her was feeling like a prison of his own design, and he couldn’t find his way out. Tensions ran high, but it wasn’t until around the time of her senior prom that these trapped emotions would reach a boiling point.

The dance itself had gone smoothly enough. Joy got to show up with a 20 year-old hot shot who knew how to wear a suit—even if he was her older brother—after the dramatic fall-out with her would-be date, Tyler Ellison. Ward never liked the guy, even if he only had met him just the one time. But when Ward overheard his sister and her friends talking about how they all planned to lose their virginity to their dates on prom night, the absolute contempt that Ward harbored for Tyler became practically biblical. It ate at him, the idea of that spoiled little trust fund brat defiling his little sister; of Joy debasing herself in that way with someone so patently unworthy of her, all for the sake of some idiotic pact that her friends must have pressured her into. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. Eventually it became such a problem for him that he decided to do something about it.

Tyler’s sports car was so conspicuous that it was easy enough for Ward to spot it parked outside the school’s tennis courts. All he had to do was wait for the kid to show up in his stupid popped-collar polo shirt; the rest was easy. He could be intimidating; his father had taught him that, at least. A few choice words in the proper tone conveyed his message clearly enough: _you can dance with her all you like, but put your wormy little dick anywhere near her and you’re going to regret it._

_Joy Meachum was off-limits._

He hadn’t intended to scare the guy off, completely, but when Ward found his sister in tears the following night, crying about how Tyler Ellison decided to take another girl to the prom instead of her only two days before the big event, he was hardly surprised. His offer to accompany her, himself, had been met with initial hesitation, but the idea seemed to grow on Joy. He was secretly relieved that she’d accepted the offer, since it meant he’d be able to keep an eye on her throughout the evening (even if it also meant enduring everything that went along with it). 

So he’d worn the suit; he’d rented the limo; he’d posed for the photos and played nice with the kids. It was somewhat gratifying to realize that Joy’s friends still thought he was the shit; all the girls wanted to know who the hot, older guy with Joy Meachum was. In a couple years, of course, everyone would know who he was. But back in 2007, he was just starting to make a name for himself in the corporate world, let alone the larger media landscape. It was only a matter of time before ‘Ward Meachum,’ and shortly after, ‘The Meachum Siblings,’ would become a brand of its own. For now, he was just ‘Joy’s hot older brother,’ but that was still something. 

His sister seemed to enjoy showing him off, strutting around with a ready smile and an acute awareness of the eyes watching them. The dress she wore fit her spectacularly and made her look more mature than a 17 year-old, with her long legs peeking through her thigh high split. Ward had bristled, slightly, when he’d noticed that she’d worn the diamond heart necklace that her father had sent her, but he’d hid his reaction well. 

The dance itself wasn’t the problem. It was the afterparty that he hadn’t been prepared for.

Joy had insisted on going. She made it very clear that if he didn’t take her to the party, he’d ruin everything. To this day he couldn’t even tell you whose mansion they ended up at; some sprawling estate in Westchester that had somehow been taken over by teenagers for the evening. It had been a total shit show. Somewhere between his second or third shitty drink and the lines of coke he’d done with the prom queen, Ward had lost sight of Joy. He kept looking for her, wandering around the palatial home for what seemed like hours while distraction after distraction presented itself. He had run into Joy’s old friend, Kristen, who’d offered him a blow job in no uncertain terms. “But I’m _really_ good at it,” she’d drunkenly insisted as he tried to change the subject, asking if she’d seen his sister. “Who cares...” Kristen had slurred, “She’s probably off boning Tyler Ellison.”

When Ward mentioned the falling out Joy and Tyler had before the prom, Kristen seemed certain that Joy had gotten over it, since she’d seen them together looking pretty cozy. 

“When was this?” Ward had pressed, looking distinctly unhappy. 

“I dunno... a little while ago...”

“Where?” Ward asked her.

“Upstairs,” Kristen had shrugged. “Hey, where are you going?” She’d protested when Ward had left her in a hurry.

He’d interrupted several young couples in the middle of various stages of sexual activity before he found the room Tyler had taken Joy to. He remembers finding her there, her dress unzipped and hiked up, with Tyler hovering over her, dick out, fumbling to unfasten her bra. He remembers the look of anger on her face and the look of fear on Tyler’s when they saw him there, pissed off and shouting at Tyler to _get the fuck off my sister_... He doesn’t exactly remember punching the kid in the face, but he does remember Joy pulling him back, screaming at him to stop. 

“Zip up your dress, Joy, we’re leaving,” he had said, in a tone that didn’t invite argument. 

He knows that she had been mad at him. He knows that he’d practically had to drag her into the limo, and that she was arguing with him so loudly that he’d had to put up the privacy partition as a courtesy to the driver. What he doesn’t know is where, exactly, their fighting changed into something else; the turning point where all that energy got redirected into a simmering, low-grade lust. Maybe it was when she’d started hitting him, after he’d insisted that “Only a slut would let a guy that douchey anywhere near her. Is that what you are, now, Joy? A little slut?”

He’d grabbed her wrists and huffed a dark laugh when she’d lashed out at him, telling her she’d have to hit him a lot harder than that if she wanted him to feel it. 

“You can call me whatever you want, but do you know what you are, Ward?” She’d hissed, struggling to pull out of his grip, “Aside from a fucking asshole?”

“What am I, Joy,” Ward sneered, “let’s hear it.”

She’d fixed him with a mean look, then, before replying in a condescending tone, “You’re a disgusting pervert.”

Ward’s grip on her wrists slackened enough for her to wrest free, but she didn’t move away from him. “Look at you,” she continued, looking him over contemptuously, “what are you even doing here? Don’t you have better things to do right now than drag me away from my prom night out of sheer fucking _**jealousy**?_ It’s _pathetic_.”

“ _Jealous??_ Of _that_ little twerp?” Ward seethed, “I’m only _here_ because _you needed me_.”

“But I _don’t_ need you, Ward... I don’t need your protection... I don’t need your lame fucking insults... and you know what? I _really_ don’t need your hand down my pants anymore when guys like Tyler are just lining up to do what you can’t.”

That last one had hit him harder than her little fists had. There was a long, loaded pause before Ward ground out, “What are you trying to say, Joy?”

“ _You heard me,_ ” she purred. 

He had the distinct impression that he was being challenged. He rose to it. “Do you really want to get fucked by one of those losers _that_ badly?” he sneered.

Joy narrowed her eyes at him, smirking before she carefully asked. “Does that make you jealous?”

Ward considered a different course for a moment before surprising her with a quiet admission: “I don’t like it.”

Joy considered him for a moment, her microexpressions flitting between several rapid-fire emotions before landing on ‘hungry.’ She leaned against her seat, arching her back in a tantalizing posture as she asked, her breasts heaving out from her gaping neckline, “What are you going to do about it?”

Ward knew the cue she was giving him, and it only took him a moment’s hesitation before he acted on it. He reached out to touch her leg where it was peeking through the high slit of her dress, his fingers reaching just above the knee. She shifted her leg ever-so-slightly, leaning into the touch, daring him to go further. Her eyes were dark with the weight of her challenge. _All or nothing, asshole._

He’d pounced on her. The next thing he knew they were making out in the back of that limo like their lives depended on it; like they needed each other’s mouths to breathe. It was violent at first—full of gasping and biting and pulling and shoving—but after awhile they found common ground in a slower, more sensuous rhythm, replacing the shoving and grasping for softer caresses, and replacing the biting with long, languid tongue strokes. Ward had been sucking gently at the side of Joy’s neck, her fingers digging into his scalp, when the limo came to a halt. They’d looked momentarily baffled, as if waking up from being hypnotized and not recognizing where they were, before Ward fixed his sister with a determined expression and took her by the hand, leading her out of the limo and into their home, then straight upstairs to his bedroom. 

He’ll never forget taking her dress off that night. Kissing her body every step of the way, until she was standing naked in front of him, wearing only the heart necklace. He remembers the way she climbed into his bed, more self-conscious than he’d ever seen her, while he quietly undressed before joining her. He remembers how softly he’d kissed her as their naked bodies melted together, feeling all the electricity mounting between them and then engulfing them, like a cocoon, wrapping around them in tight threads of bondage, in anticipation of the next phase in their torrid relationship. He didn’t know what they would become, next, but was finally ready to jump blindly into the seething current, letting brutal nature take its course.

In the end, Joy had got what she wanted, after all: she lost her virginity to her prom date.

“We’re here, sir,” the Uber driver announced as he pulled up to Ward’s building. Ward appeared momentarily disoriented. _Oh, right_... It wasn’t the old Rand place, anymore. He hadn’t lived there in years.

“Thanks for listening,” Ward sighed, fishing some bills out of his wallet. 

“Oh, that’s not necessary,” the driver had protested when Ward left the cash on the center console.

“You never saw me,” Ward intoned, suddenly sounding more threatening than drunk. “This never happened.”

“Of course, sir,” the driver agreed, sounding sincere.

Satisfied, Ward gathered himself up and left the vehicle, freeing the ‘party car’ up for its next passengers, who would certainly be much less miserable than him.

He probably said too much. But at least he hadn’t vomited.


	6. Chapter 6

“Hey, Joy. It’s me. It’s... about three AM... yeah. So... I know you don’t want to talk to me right now. I get it. But I was just thinking... hey, do you remember that time I came home from boarding school, that first Christmas after dad sent me away? You were _so mad_ at me for leaving like that... you really thought that I had some kind of say in it, remember? And even though I tried to tell you how lame it was—how much I actually hated rugby—you just _didn’t get it_ , because that sense of betrayal you had was stronger than reason. It just made this... this... this dense, humongous _cloud_ that just completely blocked out your better judgement. You wouldn’t even open the present I gave you. Remember that? ...I mean, if you should have been mad at anyone, it should have been dad,” Ward muttered, “ _He_ was the one who made me leave; it was his idea in the first place. And what was I supposed to do, Joy? Huh?” Ward took a deep breath, realizing he’d strayed too far from the point he was trying to make. “Anyways, I was just remembering that. I thought it seemed significant. Maybe it was a stupid idea to bring it up. I just want you to know that I’m always here for you, if you need me. No strings attached. ...I don’t mean... not like that. Like, anything you need from me, if you just want to _talk_ to somebody, about whatever...” Ward heaved a heavy sigh before continuing, “Listen. I know that I fucked up. What else is new, right? Just call me, Joy. Please.”

Ward’s finger hovered over the “end call” button for a few seconds before opting for the # key instead. He was sweating a little as he listened to the robotic female-sounding voice reading off the list of options.

_“To listen to your message, press 1. To rerecord your message, press 2. If you are satisfied with your message, press 3. To delete your message, press 4. To hear these options again, press pound.”_

He pressed 1. After cringing at how defensive he sounded half-way through, he felt a surge of panic welling up inside and immediately pressed the # key. 

_“To listen to your message...”_

He pressed 4. 

_“Your message has been erased. Main menu. To rerecord your message, press 1...”_

Ward hung up the phone and laid back on his mattress with a groan of self-loathing. He knew that he should really just try to get some sleep. Getting undressed seemed like such a huge effort, though. He wondered about all those guys he’d seen in movies and stuff, coming home after a long day’s work, maybe after drinking too much afterwards with the fellas, whose wives or girlfriends or whatever would take pity on them after finding them passed out on the couch... and then those women would always help them out of their shoes, unfasten their belts... making them comfortable before covering them with a blanket, touching them gently and kissing their foreheads. Ward wondered if that shit actually happened in real life. Because it certainly didn’t happen to him.

He wondered how much longer she would torture him like this. After everything they’d been through... after all the drama; all the unspeakable shit that went down between them... it was devastating to imagine that this would be the thing that broke them apart for good. _Devastating, but not incomprehensible..._

He knew that Joy had a particular talent for holding a grudge. Back when things were still good between them, he’d had a talent of his own for softening her defenses. Back when what she wanted more than anything—more than all of her self-righteous anger and her obsession with winning—was him.

They’d had some epic fights, to be sure, but even after all the hold-outs and silent treatments, eventually they’d all end the same way: with Ward buried deep inside of her, reminding her why it always felt better when they were together—as close together as two people could be—than apart. 

Like the time she refused to speak to Ward for weeks after he wouldn’t agree to her taking a cross-country road trip with a guy she barely knew the summer after her high school graduation. She’d thought that being “almost 18” meant it was her decision to make, but Ward had insisted otherwise. Part of him was fairly certain that all the resulting drama of that argument had been completely unnecessary, since if she’d really wanted to go on that trip with that guy, nothing was really stopping her. She could have easily slipped away some time when Ward was out, tossing her bags into the back of Dalton’s monstrous Mercedes G-Class SUV and driving off into the sunset, leaving behind a cloud of vape smoke billowing out from the driver’s window... and maybe also leaving a strongly-worded note for Ward. He might’ve expected to find that note waiting for him when he returned each night, except for the obvious fact that Joy really wasn’t cut out for road life, and had even less actual interest in a guy who smoked weed out of a “pen” and used words like “wanderlust.” 

Ward suspected that the whole drama had been exaggerated in order to make a larger point: that Joy wanted things that she couldn’t have, because of Ward. He was the asshole whose need to be in control was ruining her life; whose unhealthy obsession with his little sister was preventing her from living her best life. Sometimes he wondered if that were true. He certainly had his fair share of misgivings about their relationship, and all the complications that came with it. He also knew that he could be overly possessive at times. But when he’d ask himself if he would be making the same decisions even if he _didn’t_ know how good it felt to be inside her, he was fairly confident that he would, and that was enough for him. The decision had stood. 

Joy had held out for weeks before finding Ward in the kitchen late one night, startling him as he closed the refrigerator door and saw her standing there in her underwear and a flimsy camisole, an inscrutable look on her face as she leaned against the doorframe, staring at him. 

“Are you lost?” Ward intoned, his eyes narrowed as he observed her suspiciously before reaching for a glass. He was used to her silence by now, but that was when she was ignoring him. It felt particularly unnerving in this context. 

“Pretty late for a snack, if that’s what you’re after,” Ward mused as he poured himself some milk. “Maybe you and Dalton were out smoking weed together....”

Joy just rolled her eyes, staring at her brother in that weird way as he sipped from his glass. He stared back at her in confusion while he finished his milk.

“Hmm. Alright. Good talk,” he murmured before turning away and rinsing out his glass. She was still standing there when he turned back around. 

“Well, I’m going to bed, now,” he shrugged. “G’night, sis.”

Just as he moved to walk past her, she put a hand out to stop him, pressing her warm palm into his chest. He stared down at her hand for a moment with a frown before glancing up at her, looking probingly into her eyes for a hint at what she was thinking. At first glance she appeared angry with him in her usual way, _but on closer inspection..._

Her hand suddenly closed around the fabric of his shirt, gripping tightly as her expression communicated something that Ward suddenly understood. For whatever reason, in that moment, _she wanted him_. She pulled him toward her by his shirt, urging him forward. He almost gave in, but a moment later his hand shot up to wrap around her wrist. 

“What is this?” he sneered, “Some kind of mind game?”

Joy’s face lit up with another trademark variety of carefully concealed emotions before she glared back at her brother and half-whispered, in a tone that landed somewhere between bitter and sultry, _“Just shut up and fuck me, Ward.”_

“Hmmmmmmmmm....” Ward growled as he braced his arms against the wall on either side of her, still looking deeply suspicious, but turned on despite himself. 

“Come on,” Joy drawled, _“I know you want to.”_

Ward’s face twisted at the bold assertion, frustrated that she was right. _It had been awhile..._

On the other hand, though, he couldn’t make it that easy for her.

“Nah...” He smirked, teasing her with his most shit-eating grin, “I think that _you_ want it.”

Her nostrils flared and she looked back at him like she wanted to claw his eyes out.

“What’s the matter?” Ward muttered in that too-low tone that she always found sexy as hell, “Did I hit a nerve?”

Suddenly an idea occurred to Joy, and her still-angry face took on a gradual smugness. Ward lifted an eyebrow inquiringly as she leaned all the way back into the wall, offering a better view of her body as she slowly, tantalizingly began to lift her camisole up, inch by inch until her nipples were exposed. Ward tried not to swallow too noticeably as she played with her tits in front of him, coaxing her nipples into rosy hardness, staring at him with a playful smirk the whole time. As Ward’s breathing pattern became more prominent, Joy let one hand fall away from her breasts to skim down her body, her slitted eyes making sure Ward was watching as she slid her hand behind the waistband of her underwear. She bit her lip as she felt herself getting hotter and wetter as her brother watched, failing to keep his expression neutral. He’d had that dull look on his face that he got sometimes, like someone had just hit him over the head.

“What does that feel like?” Ward murmured, his voice hoarse. Joy gasped out a tiny sound and his eyes darted between her face and her hands, trying to take it all in. “Tell me.”

 _“Wet...”_ Joy breathed, smirking again as Ward licked his lips. _“Hot...”_

“Mmm hmm...” Ward acknowledged, transfixed by the sight of Joy’s left hand pulling at her pink little nipple. “What else.”

Joy made a small, high sound as she circled her clit, and when Ward’s eyes flashed back to hers, she looked right into him as she answered with a small laugh, _“ticklish...”_

 _“Keep going,”_ Ward instructed, his voice raw.

Joy’s right hand delved deeper, eliciting a small gasp from her and making Ward inhale sharply through his nostrils. 

“It hurts...” she whined.

“What do you mean?” Ward mumbled, scanning her face.

Joy let out a tiny moan as her fingers curled deep inside of her. “Without you inside me,” she whined, staring back at him with needy eyes, “It _hurts_ so _bad... wanting_ you...”

Ward let out a strange, gurgled sound before lifting her up suddenly, causing her to gasp as he wrapped her legs around his waist and carried her a few feet over to the countertop. Her camisole had slid down in the commotion, and he shoved it back up to expose her tits, sucking a nipple into his mouth as he squeezed the other breast with a too-firm grip that made Joy inhale sharply. As he pulled back his lips looked swollen and his eyes wild, and he stared at her with an expression she’d never seen from him before as he tugged her panties off roughly, then forced her legs apart as wide as they would go. Joy’s hands slid back behind her to brace herself, leaning back as Ward positioned her at the edge of the counter, then stared between her splayed legs with glazed-over eyes, his hands squeezing her thighs greedily at the sight. She was completely exposed, but the faraway look on her brother’s slack-jawed face had her utterly transfixed. When he finally glanced back up at her, what he saw was a beautiful combination of complete power and total vulnerability. 

It was his first time tasting her. He’ll never, ever forget it. The scent of her, up close, somehow new and familiar at the same time. Learning the most intimate part of her body with his mouth, seeing it, feeling it, _tasting_ it as it moved with him, responding to his languorous exploration. He’d been so distracted and she’d been making so much noise above him that he was hardly paying attention to anything else, so by the time he finally heard her crying, _“Please.... Ward... please...”_ she was practically in tears.

He knew what she wanted. What she was _hurting_ for. With his attention so fixated on Joy’s delicious pussy, he hadn’t even realized how painfully stiff his own cock had become. Pushing down his sweatpants just past his buttocks, Ward took his engorged cock in his hand and aimed at the tight little spot his tongue had just worked over. He was so erect that the angle was almost awkward, but he made it work. 

Joy actually did start crying, then, when he finally fucked her there on the countertop; at least it sounded like sobbing. Ward had gritted his teeth and given her a pounding she wouldn’t forget, his punishing thrusts punctuated by his own irrepressible grunts. She came quickly, but he kept on going, driving into her again and again, like he was trying to drive home a point. _Do you see what happens, Joy? See what you get when you fuck with me?_

He started getting winded, and the angle of the countertop was becoming too uncomfortable to work with. But he wasn’t done, yet. He pulled out of her suddenly, and even in her post-orgasmic daze, Joy looked disappointed. 

_“I’m not finished with you,”_ Ward assured her, his voice full of dark promise. Joy shuddered and wrapped her tired arms around her big brother’s neck as he lifted her up again and carried her into the hallway. 

Her room was the closest.

He’d taken her into her bedroom, shutting the door behind him before laying her down on her bed, then kissing her possessively before pulling his shirt off and removing his pants completely. Then he climbed on top of her, kissing her neck while he found her swollen opening with the head of his dick. He’d held it there teasingly for a moment, then bit down on the join of her neck and shoulder as he shoved himself deep inside her. Joy had made all kinds of sounds as he fucked her hard into the mattress, her brother’s face a picture of relentless determination as he panted over her, his eyes communicating all the things he was too single-minded to vocalize.

_This is what happens. This is what you get. This is what you deserve._   
_You’re so fucking beautiful._   
_Don’t shut me out. Look at me._   
_Don’t try to leave._   
_I need you here, Joy. I need this._   
_I want you. I want you so bad._   
_You’re mine._   
_Mine._   
_Mine..._

He’d felt her come again at least once, probably even twice before he finally spilled all of his neediness and fury and tenderness inside of her. 

He’d come so hard that he was sure he must’ve gotten her pregnant. After a tense, sweaty-palmed visit to a clinic cleared that possibility from his conscience, he’d made sure that Joy started taking birth control pills. Too many times they’d found themselves in situations like the kitchen incident, where condoms were the last thing on their minds. He’d also felt weird about wearing them with Joy; something about it felt too gross, too premeditated. If they were going to fuck each other, they both seemed to prefer doing it raw, making sure every sensation was felt. They both knew perfectly well that what they were doing was dangerous, and no thin piece of rubber was going to protect them from each other.


	7. Chapter 7

“Joy. Hi. It’s me. It’s about... four AM, now. I can’t sleep, obviously. I’m not drunk, if that’s what you’re thinking... not anymore, at least. Sorry that I’ve called so many times... it’s been... _hard_... for me, since we last spoke. I’m really trying to hold it together here.” 

Ward rubbed a hand across his face, bouncing his leg anxiously as he sat hunched over on the side of his bed. He’d just deleted his last two attempts to leave a voice message for Joy, and was under a lot of pressure to get it right, this time.

“I wish you were here, right now, because maybe this would be easier for me if I could see your face. Even if you were scowling at me... and you probably would be... and I’d probably deserve it, I know that. But at least I would still be able to look you in the eyes when I tell you what I have to say. I just... I just don’t think I’m ever going to be able to sleep until I say it. I know my timing is shit. I know this is all wrong. But goddamnit, Joy... I’m sorry, okay? Maybe I’ll never be the man you want me to be... the man you think I am. Or thought I was...” 

He paused for a moment, swallowing back the tears that threatened to break loose. When he spoke again, his voice sounded more wrecked than before. 

“I know that I could’ve been a better brother to you. I could’ve been a lot of things, but instead I just ...turned out the way I did, and that’s on me. I’ll take all the blame. Forget dad, forget The Hand, forget Rand... forget mom, even... it’s all on me. I did this. I _made_ this. Because maybe, in the end, I really do destroy everything I touch. Who knows why... bad luck... or maybe there’s something inside of me that just _needs_ to destroy everything... some... faulty wiring in my brain... like a bad impulse... and I’ve just been too weak or too stupid to fight it.”

Suddenly feeling very tired, Ward adjusted his posture, trying to find a more comfortable position before he steeled himself for his parting words. 

“But you gotta know, Joy, that even despite all my fuck-ups and my many, many shortcomings, that... for whatever its worth... I’ve always loved you,” he quietly admitted, “...and I always will. Goodnight, Joy.”

His finger hovered over the “end call” button, wanting so badly to be done with it; to leave it out there and let the universe decide his fate. But then, without any real forethought, his finger moved to the # key, instead. He felt a sense of dissociation as he deleted the message he’d just left with mechanical efficiency, then ended the call entirely. As if some part of him was overriding his momentary need for emotional honesty with clinical precision; an old, domineering instinct for self-preservation, at whatever cost. He just watched it happen, detached and exhausted, before collapsing against his pillows with a heaving sigh. 

He could still feel it, at times like this. He knows that it’s always there, deep down; the wound that would never heal. But, for the most part, it stays down there, submerged under years' worth of accumulated insulation: all the reasons he knew it could never be, the bare bones of all the impossible hopes he’d crushed, layer after layer of ugly scar tissue, of words never said, of practiced denial. But it’s still there. And at times like this he could still feel it down there, still beating, somehow; that arrhythmic, unnatural pulse that should have given out long ago. 

It was his fault, of course; he was the one who allowed it to grow there in the first place, burrowing into his heart like the most insidious kind of parasite. He hadn’t invited it, perhaps, but he might’ve had a window of opportunity to cast it out before it took root there permanently. If that window ever even existed, he imagines it must’ve been sometime around Joy’s second or third year at Columbia, back when she really started to assert herself as the whip-smart, confident woman that she was bound to become. Sometime around then was when he must’ve known that he was falling in love with her.

Everything changed, of course, when Joy started college. Ward hadn’t been prepared for it. Columbia was only twenty minutes away from their home in Gramercy Park, but somehow the distance between them managed to feel much greater. Between Joy’s new life as a college student and Ward’s ever-expanding responsibilities at Rand, it seemed that they were on two very distinct trajectories that only ever intersected when they both made the time and effort, which was becoming less and less frequent. Joy stopped coming into Ward’s room at night, and on the one, desperate night that he really needed her and went to her bedroom for consolation, he’d found her fast asleep and didn’t want to wake her. He didn’t try that again. 

Then, she got her first boyfriend. He hadn’t been prepared for that, either, though it should have been obviously inevitable. To her credit, Joy did take pains to keep the guy out of Ward’s way, but even when she snuck him in so quietly on the odd weekend, Ward always knew when he was there. He also knew when Joy was going out to meet him, by the way she’d dress and how little information she’d offer about where she was going. By the time Joy even admitted that she was dating the guy, Ward already knew everything about him, including how often Joy was seeing him, since he’d asked one of his security guys to run a complete background check on him and to keep an eye on Joy. He’d let that go on for a full month before the reports he received back just made him too sick to want to continue. He was sure he’d already lost her. Joy had moved on.

A few months later, Ward met Anna. She was the daughter of a prominent shareholder at Rand, though that itself wasn’t what caught Ward’s attention. He’d noticed the look he’d seen on her face while dining at another country club event that her father had dragged her to, trying to ingratiate her with the elites of his world, despite her clear lack of interest in any of it. Ward had recognized that look as one he would be wearing all the time, himself, if he wasn’t required to play the part of the aspiring heir. He envied her ability to wear it openly, and admired her ability to wear it so beautifully. 

Though he’d put on all the charm he knew how to summon back then, Anna had been decidedly unimpressed with his overtures. She’d been polite, but was clearly not interested. Her father, however, was very interested in this potential match, and immediately noticed the attention Ward had been paying to her. He’d arranged a dinner for the two of them a couple days later, assuring Ward that his daughter was, in fact, more interested in him than she appeared, and that she simply was “not particularly skilled at showing it.” 

Ward knew that the dinner was a setup, and that Anna definitely hadn’t agreed to it easily. Even so, he was determined to convey to her that they had more in common than she realized, so he put on a real effort at winner her over. After an awkward start, the night seemed to be going nowhere fast until Ward casually remarked, “So, your dad seems like a real prick...” 

From there, an increasingly fervent discussion about shitty parenting and control issues and nonconsensual life choices ensued. By the end of the dinner, Ward and Anna had really hit it off, despite the grating knowledge that their dads would have been so proud. They agreed to see each other again. Their second date led to a third, which led to Ward getting a blowjob in his car outside her parents’ house, which led to an arrangement to meet her in their poolhouse the following night. Then, lying in the dark beside her on the tangled-up linens, with the air around them still thick with the smell of sex, Ward invited her to meet his sister. 

In another world—maybe in one that ran parallel to this world, if he believed in that sort of thing—Anna and Ward might’ve had a real chance at something together. She did seem to complement him well: she was smart, and pretty, and had a low tolerance for bullshit. Truth be told, the sex was pretty good, too. But unfortunately, this wasn’t the world Ward was living in. His world wasn’t the one in which he gets to live happily ever after with anybody. His world, as he would soon come to understand, was the one in which there was only ever really room for one woman in his life; any others were only ever passing through, like tourists getting caught in a carnival funhouse, easily drawn in by the attractive facade, only to have to pass through a disorienting battery of unavoidable challenges, mind fucks and distortions before escaping back to solid ground. Enter at your own risk. No refunds. No peeking behind the curtain; nobody gets to go back there, ever, to see what was really going on behind all those slippery floor tricks and mirror mazes... because if they did somehow manage to figure out a way in to the dark underbelly of the machine, what they’d discover would be the most hideous freak show attraction of all: the sight of Ward Meachum professing his undying love for his sister as he DP’s her over the control panel. _The ghastliest show on Earth._

Anna hadn’t known what she’d signed up for when she allowed Ward into her life. She was barely eighteen, fresh out of boarding school and completely fed up with the predetermined life course her parents had set her on since her conception. As a legal adult she felt entitled to a freedom that her parents wouldn’t afford her, wanting to move as far away from them as possible (in her mind, this meant the west coast), but also expecting a marginal amount of support from them in this decision. She’d been sorely mistaken. She’d been coddled and privileged to such a degree that facing ‘the real world’ on her own felt impossibly daunting, leaving her in a bitter state of dependency on those she was desperate to rebel against. In her desperation she’d considered seeking the support of a wealthy older man to fund her escape, but loathed the idea of being groped by anyone even remotely resembling her father. Ward had seemed to her like just another one of her dad’s detestable associates when she first encountered him, but he had proven himself to be surprisingly relatable. Add to that his undeniable handsomeness and his willingness for rule breaking, and Anna had thought she’d found someone she could actually fall in love with. It was almost tragic, how mistaken she was. 

Ward never meant to hurt her. He liked Anna. He liked the way she looked at him, as if he were some kind of fairy tale prince. It was almost enough to make him believe that he was the kind of guy that Anna saw in him, and so he played the part with enough credibility to fool even himself into thinking that he was different, now; that Anna had changed him. He wasn’t the sad, morbidly obsessive fuck-up anymore. He was Ward Meachum, the independent, charming young entrepreneur with a naughty streak, who knew how to show a girl a good time. Joy had to see this.

So Ward had started bringing Anna around more and more, usually at times coinciding with whenever Joy happened to be home. Sometimes the timing was just too perfect, like when Joy had walked into the living room one evening at the exact moment that Ward was unhooking Anna’s bra, while she sat astride him during another hot make-out session. When Joy had made her presence known, interrupting the distracted couple with a sarcastic, “Oh, Anna, what a surprise to see you, here...”, Ward had just smirked with a shrug of feigned innocence as Anna gasped and pressed her body against his chest in an effort to keep her bra from falling off. “Sorry, Joy!” Anna had offered, “We weren’t expecting you!”

“I’m sure you weren’t,” Joy fake-smiled, fixing Ward with a knowing look before pursing her lips and continuing to her room. When Anna suggested that they relocate to Ward’s room, he tried to just pick up where they had left off, assuring Anna that Joy wouldn’t bother them again. It was only when it became increasingly apparent that Anna was uncomfortable fucking Ward in a place where Joy might see them that he agreed to move to his bedroom, and even then he seemed a lot more vocal than usual, making a lot of noise when he came. Anna thought it was because he liked being a ‘bad boy,’ but it still seemed strange how performative this side of him would become whenever Joy was around. 

Anna would ask him why he didn’t just move out, yet; surely Joy was old enough to live on her own, now, and clearly Ward had the means. _“Wouldn’t you like having a place of your own?”_

But somehow Ward always had a ready excuse as to why it was better this way, since Joy needed him for one reason or another: comfort, protection, not wanting to feel alone after their father’s death... Ward made it seem as if the answer were obvious. He and Joy simply couldn’t be apart.

Then, Pete started hanging around. Joy’s boyfriend was aggressively friendly, which might’ve explained Joy’s initial hesitation to let him loose around Ward. Once he started talking, it was hard to get him to shut up. He was also a competitive rower, and was always trying to talk Ward into joining him for a casual training session, despite Ward’s insistence that he was simply too busy for a canoe ride. _“Shells, not canoes,”_ Pete would helpfully correct him. Despite being someone who managed to befriend everybody he met, Ward still found a way to secretly hate him. If Pete brought over a six pack of light beer to share, Ward suddenly developed a pronounced aversion to light beer. If Pete had extra tickets to a Yankees game, Ward wasn’t into baseball. If Joy was taking Pete as her guest to the gallery opening that she and Ward had been invited to attend, Ward wouldn’t linger around for small talk. There was always someone else he needed to speak with. 

One night, Joy finally confronted him about it. “Do you always have to be such an asshole?” she’d asked him, after following him down the terraced stairway at some otherwise forgettable charity event, her severe expression clashing with her flowy Proenza Schouler dress. “You just completely blew Pete off back there.”

“I don’t want to talk to Pete,” Ward answered bluntly. “I see Pete all the time. Why do I have to talk to him tonight?”

“You don’t have to be so rude about it,” Joy insisted, trying to keep her voice down though they were well out of range of the crowd. “Pete’s always nice to you, and you’re always a total jerk to him.”

“What can I say,” Ward shrugged, “Pete’s a saint. I’m an ass. I’ve got a phone call to make.”

“Oh, sure; suddenly in the middle of a conversation you realize you need to make a call? It just occurred to you as soon as Pete tried talking to you?” Joy sarcastically retorted.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Ward dryly responded. “In that moment it did suddenly seem important.”

Joy fixed a mean look on her brother before replying, “You’re such an asshole.”

“We’ve established this,” Ward quipped. 

Joy looked at him strangely for a moment, then approached him slowly with an intense expression. As she leaned toward him, for a startled moment Ward thought she might kiss him before her head veered toward his ear instead, and she whispered, _“I want you to move out.”_

Ward’s breath hitched. It hadn’t been what he was expecting to hear, and it took him a moment to subdue the surge of panic that moved through him. When he felt more composed, his heart still racing at the close proximity to Joy’s body, an idea struck him. He didn’t even think it through before he heard himself reply, _“Ask me nicely.”_

Joy looked at him calculatingly before a slow smile spread across her face. The game was back on. “Please, Ward?” she offered, tracing his tie with her finger as she asked in her sultriest tone, “Will you move out so I can fuck my boyfriend in privacy?”

Ward frowned, reaching a hand out beside her to lean against the rock wall as he intoned, “You’re going to have to do better than that.”

Joy pursed her lips as she feigned disappointment before replying, “Oh yeah? Well what’s it going to take?”

“I dunno...” Ward shrugged, reaching out his free hand to gently push Joy’s hair back over her shoulder, exposing the elegant line of her clavicle as he continued, “I guess you’ll have to get creative...”

Joy’s smile widened before her eyes broke from his, looking around for a moment before she reached for Ward’s hand. He looked at her inquiringly before he allowed her to lead him toward an unlit portion of the garden, glancing around to make sure nobody was watching them. She moved with an intuitive grace, as if she knew exactly where to find the most private section of the property. The noise of the crowd seemed far away, there, and the only light came down from the waning half moon illuminating the sparse clouds high above them. Joy leaned against a low rock wall and pulled her brother toward her, interlocking her fingers with his as she asked, _“Just try not to mess up my dress, okay?”_

Ward hadn’t touched her in so long that he almost didn’t know what to do, next. He must have stared at her for too long, looking somewhat lost and overwhelmed, because suddenly she was reaching behind his neck, tentatively pulling him down for a long, slow kiss. She watched his reactions, as if waiting for him to make the next move, looking surprised when she pulled back and saw only dazed tenderness where she must have expected to see a hectic kind of lust. 

“Come on, Ward,” she urged him, hiking up the gauzy fabric of her dresses skirt before reaching for his hand again and placing it against her thigh. _“Are you going to fuck me, or not?”_

Ward swallowed as he stroked his hand carefully over Joy’s thigh, seemingly amazed at the opportunity to be doing so. Joy watched him with a furrowed brow before she seemed to recognize the need to change tactics. 

_“Mmmm... that feels so good, Ward,”_ she tried, gratified when his eyes flashed up to hers. _“I love it when you touch me...”_

“Yeah?” Ward muttered, his other hand moving to her opposite leg, “You like this?” He asked, dragging his fingers lightly down the insides of her spread thighs.

“Uh huh,” she replied, sounding breathier as he slid his hands up the outside of her thighs, pushing the fabric up higher. 

“What about this?” he asked, lightly trailing his fingers over the outside of her silk underwear. 

“God, Ward,” Joy breathed, reaching out to grip the back of his neck to steady herself. “I get so wet when you do that.”

Ward felt his cock pulse in response, and he grabbed Joy’s free hand to press it against his erection. “This is what you do to me,” he breathed hotly as he dragged her hand along the fabric of his pants, showing her how he liked to be touched. She mimicked the rhythm until she got it right and he released his grip on her, closing his eyes as he suppressed a small growl. His fingers slipped under the sticky silk of Joy’s underwear and played with her slick folds, matching her pace as she worked on him. After a couple minutes of this interspersed with more kissing, Joy was tearing feverishly at Ward’s belt buckle, trying to get his pants loose. He finally woke up from his haze enough to help her, then tore her underwear down before plunging into her, all the blood rushing to his head as he filled her up with himself.

He paused for a long beat, looking down at her and into her eyes filled with wanting, and down further to the place where they were joined together, awed to see it again, as if the concept was still novel to him. He watched as he slowly pulled out of her, his eyes darting briefly to observe her face before glancing back down and watching himself push into her forcefully again, his thumbs digging into her hips as she cried out before he pulled out slowly, over and over, his perception moving back and forth between that of a participant and an observer. After too much of this he heard Joy whining, _“Faster, Ward; please...”_ and his mouth twisted in a half smirk before he leaned in closer to her and tried to accommodate her. Without any leverage, though, he found it difficult, so he tried getting her to lay back further until his hands could grip the ivy vines behind her. As his thrusts became faster, Joy started moaning like she was on the verge of coming. Not caring about the plants anymore, Ward pressed his body more firmly into Joy’s until she was completely submerged in the ivy bed, the curling tendrils tangling in her hair as Ward’s body heaved on top of hers, his hands crumpling leaves and breaking vines as he tore into the foliage with the same ferocity that his dick tore into her until he felt her gasping and quaking under him. It fell like the Earth was crumbling apart underneath them as she came, as if he were fucking her right off the edge of a disintegrating cliff; after a few more abrupt thrusts he came, hard, making a slightly embarrassing sound that he tried to muffle against her hair as his free-falling body hurtled toward the ocean. He inhaled deeply before he collapsed beside her, rolling into the ivy without any regard for the unlucky snails that he almost certainly crushed in the process. 

They lay there for a long moment, watching the moon glow from behind the drifting clouds as their breathing slowed and their heart rates stabilized. Then Joy sat up and tried to straighten her clothing, wiping the leaf matter and other debris from her bare arms before pulling a compact mirror from her clutch and fussing with her hair. Ward pulled himself up with a low grunt before helping remove the plant matter from her hair, then looked around for the underwear he’d tossed aside while she fixed her lipstick. He offered the little scrap of damp silk to her silently, watching as she shimmied it back over her legs before smoothing out her skirt. 

She looked at him, then, securing her earrings as she casually remarked, “I want you out by the end of the month.” 

He looked stunned as she leaned in for a kiss, next, which he knew translated as a sealing of the deal, just as a handshake would in any of his other transactions. 

“See you later, Ward,” Joy smiled, returning to the crowd as if it were the most natural thing in the world. 

Ward sat slumped against the rock wall, the smell of dirt and roughened greenery making him slightly queasy as he imagined Joy sidling up to Pete, smiling at him over her glass of champagne as he recounted some inane detail about the person he’d been speaking with, pretending to be interested as she tried not to focus on the sensation of her brother’s hot cum dripping down the inside of her thigh. _What would ‘Pete’ have to say about **that**?_

Fuck. They had an agreement, now. He couldn’t believe how easily she’d pulled it off, even if part of him knew it was for the best. He had less than a month to find a new place to live.


End file.
